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Nora learned not to ask for Danny 


Y 


D A N N 


BY 

JEAN K. BAIRD 

Author of “ Cash Three ” 


ILLUSTRATED BY 

T. VICTOR HALL 


THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY 

NEW YORK AKRON, OHIO CHICAGO 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 


Two Copies Received 

JUN 6 1906 


, Copyrieht Entry 

(p, 

CLASS ic' XXc. No, 


COPYRIGHT, 1906 

By the SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY 


• C c 

r • 

* « c 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Nora learned not to ask for Danny 
“Can’t ye be takin’ it aisy?” 

“Who is 111 Luck, Danny?” 

“ I am so happy that it hurts me — hurts me here.” 


Frontispiece 

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li 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Mansion on Goat Hill 9 

II. A Special Delivery Letter . . . . . 17 

III. “ 111 Luck’s a-Coinin’ ” 25 

IV. Nora Shannon’s Journey ..... 35 

V. A Bit of a White Rosebud ..... 47 

VI. Danny Meets Nora ...... 56 

VII. “Where’s the Boss?” . . . . . . 73 

VIII. A Mishap at the Mill ...... 81 

IX. Shadows of Trouble ...... 89 

X. Danny’s Good Work 


100 



DANNY 


CHAPTER I 

The Mansion on Goat Hill 

HE Shannons lived on Goat Hill, not down at the foot 
where the houses were only a few rough boards cling- 
ing together, and there was a question whether goats 
or children were in excess, but quite at the top where there was 
a fine view of the mills and the river, and the long rocky slope 
where the pennyroyal, in a desperate struggle to live, squeezed 
itself between the stones. 

It was not alone in the elevation of the hill that Mrs. 
Shannon stood higher than her neighbors. By reason of her 
own family mansion and the social standing of those for whom 
she washed, Mrs. Shannon was the aristocrat of The Hill. 

‘‘ She’s proud, but she’s raysons fur it,” said Bridget 
Murphy, as she talked a bit with her neighbor over the wash- 
tubs. 



( 9 ) 



10 


DANNY 


‘‘ Niver a bit am Oi carin’ of folks slingin’ on the lug,” 
she continued, ‘‘ if they’ve raysons fur doin’ it, but whin they 
fly hoigh wid niver a bit more thin th’ rist of us, it’s little 
regard Oi’m payin’ to thim.” 

''It’s roight you are, Bid,” said Mona Friel. 

It was true; Mrs. Shannon felt her position and held her 
head high, as she viewed with complacence the family mansion 
and the fluttering garments on her wash-line. 

The house had one large room, serving the double purpose 
of bed-room and sitting-room, and which, in Mary Shannon’s 
estimation, was fit for a king himself, should he see fit to visit 

Goat Hill. It was furnished with a " ghrand wide ” bed with a 

" dacent ” straw tick and a " shate ” to spread over it, not to mention 
a pair of " rid ” blankets when the " noights were a bit raw loike.” 

The boards of the floor, some of which had been planed, 
fitted into each other as snug and cosy as you please, so that 
never a drop of water could soak up from below. 

But if the floor was grand, what might be said of the 
walls? There was never an inch that was not covered with 

papers — papers of all kinds ; some Danny had picked up on 
show day; others had come home on top of the washings. 

There was one small window, quite high on the wall, 
opening on a view of the stony hill where the goats frolicked. 


DANNY 


11 


The outside door, which always stood open, except in cold 
weather, looked down on the smoke-covered roofs of the mills, 
and the black stacks that rose as high as The Hill itself. 

The clouds of smoke were Mrs. Shannon’s barometers, for 
as she said, ‘‘ Any one with half-an-eye knew that whin the 
smoke hung a bit low, little carin’ if it came down or wint up, 
there was a storm a-comin’ shure, but whin it wint up sthraight, 
makin’ a bit of a circle loike, ye could hang out your clothes 
with niver a bit of worry, knowin’ ye were safe for gettin’ 
thim dhroy.” 

Back of the front room was the kitchen. It was a cosy, 
comfortable place, with a roof so low that Danny, by standing- 
on his toes, could touch the ceiling with his head, and not half 
try. It was easy to heat in cold weather, and not being large 
was not difficult to keep clean. 

There was a stove, to be sure, — for what is a kitchen 
without a stove — whose pipe had a confiding way of leaning 
against the rafters, where it disappeared through a hole in the 
roof. But hot stove-pipes and dry joists should never be too 
close friends. They should be parted at once, if they show a 
disposition to cuddle. So a square of tin had been bent around 
the pipe, and two stones as big, perhaps, as Danny’s two fists, 
held pipe and tin in place. 


12 


DANNY 


The one table was covered with oil-cloth. Providence had 
smiled upon Mrs. Shannon when it granted her so large and 
convenient a table. 

The family dined here. Here the dishes were washed, and 
here pushed back out of the way. It was an excellent place to 
sprinkle clothes, and when spread with a blanket served well for 
an ironing-board. 

Back of the kitchen was a lean-to. Now, any one who 
knows anything at all about them, knows that a lean-to may be 
put to any number of uses. 

This lean-to, with the assistance of a straw-tick on the 
floor, served as a bed-room for Danny. A rack for stove-wood 
filled in the angle between the earth and house, — and on 
days which were not wash-days, it was a storing-place for 
washers, wringers, and tubs. 

Mrs. Shannon viewed her mansion with a complacent air. 
Her expansive bosom heaved in the excess of her emotion. She 
placed her brawny fists on her broad hips and spoke to Danny: 

‘‘ The Lord knows we've a ghrand bit to be thankful for. 
The best shanty on The Hill, and a nanny, foine for hunting 
her own mailes, an' walkin’ home at milkin’ toime. Ivery day 
Oi’m lookin’ about me, an’ a-sayin' to mesilf, what ghrand thing 
has Mary Shannon done in all her loife, that she's havin’ ivery- 


DANNY 


13 


thing so foine and aisy. Niver a thing do Oi do all day, but 
paddle about in suds that’s clane and warrum, and hang up a 
few clothes on the line, an’ all the while the air a-blowin’ 
frish an’ crisp. It’s a ghrand and aisy loife Oi lead, me bhoy.” 

Danny raised his long fringed lashes, and looked at his 
mother. He made no reply. It was not Danny’s way to talk 
much. Yet his great, gray eyes with their seraphic expression, 
said an infinite number of things. 

Strangers, seeing for the first time the sweet, sensitive curve 
of Danny’s lips, and meeting the calm, beatific glance of his eyes, 
were moved to think of the face of the Madonna, which old- 
time masters loved to put upon the canvas. 

It was only with his mother this first impression lingered. 
Others learned to know him as the laziest, dirtiest, dullest, most 
selfish and indifferent boy, not only on The Hill, but in the 
town below. 

One thing he did admirably, and kept to it with a tenacity 
worthy of a noble cause. Ten, twelve, yes, sometimes fourteen 
hours in every twenty-four, he employed in this way, in which, 
were degrees given, he would have been granted that of Past- 
Grand Master. Fourteen hours each day he slept as calmly, as 
serenely, as a well-fed, healthy baby. 

According to Mrs. Shannon’s way of telling it, she had 


14 


DANNY 


been a wiclder iver since Moike had been killed of a suddent 
at the crossin’ an’ lift her alone with the bhoy, Danny, turnin’ 
foive that same spring.” 

Mike Shannon had had a brother, but the family had not 
heard of him for years. It was the general opinion on Goat 
Hill that this Tom Shannon had gone to the bad. What par- 
ticular road he had selected for his journey, no one seemed to 
know; but every one shook his head, and rolled his eyes upward, 
and assumed an air of knowing much and saying little at the 
mention of his name. 

Bridget Murphy, who had known Tom Shannon in his 
younger days, was the only one who ventured to express herself 
in words. Danny’s resemblance to his uncle was great. Many a 
time when Danny passed, Bid paused in her rubbing to say, 
‘‘There goes that Shannon bhoy. As like his uncle Tom as two 
pays in one pod, an’ he’ll be goin’ sthraight to the divil, loike 
Tom wint — only slower — a bit slower.” 

“ That’s the thruth yer tellin’. Bid,” said Mona Friel. 

Tom Shannon had been quick to think and act, so when 
he went to the bad, as his friends believed he did, he un- 
doubtedly would go at a more rapid rate than Danny. But 
whatever way he went, he moved so rapidly that he was soon 
out of sight and knowledge of his old friends. 


DANNY 


15 


Early in life he had shown a wayward disposition, a sort 
of tendency to take the reins in his own hands. 

Mike, who was some years older, had secured for him the 
easy work of rubbing down horses and cleaning carriages, where 
the wages were fair, and where he was paid as regularly as Satur- 
day night came. Tom kept his place but a week or so, when, 
making the acquaintance of a doctor, he began to drive a horse 
for him. Mike, disgusted with his brother’s choice, warned him 
that the time would come, and come soon, when he would grow 
tired of working about a stable where there was no one to talk 
to but himself. 

Mike proved a true prophet. It was not long until Tom 
Shannon sat in the doctor’s office, turning the pages of great 
books and looking at pictures dene in gay colors. 

Here he stayed for several years, ‘'not turnin’ his hand to 
a bit of honest work,” Mike said. Then he left town. He 
wrote again and again to his brother. But Mike “ being no 
hand for the pen,” never answered. Tom’s letters ceased, and he 
became but a memory on Goat Hill. 

Mike married, and Danny with his tender lips and 
Madonna-like eyes came to the home. It was at this time a 
letter came from Tom Shannon. He was now Dr. Thomas 
Shannon. He, too, had married. He enclosed a picture of his 


16 


DANNY 


bride, for it had been in the first moments of his happiness that 
his thoughts had gone back to his boyhood home. He had 
married the daughter of a steamboat captain. 

But Mike Shannon was not to be overcome by a pretty 
face on a bit of paste-board and a few honeyed words on paper. 
He had made up his mind long ago that Tom had gone to the 
bad, and Mike was not one to change his opinions. 

Married to the daughter of a sea-captain! Mike Shannon 
knew what that meant. He had heard of sea-captains and 
pirates. They were all the same “ murderin’, thavin’ set,” and 
he’d have nothing at all to do with them. 

So Tom Shannon again dropped from the knowledge of the 
people on The Hill. Mike died, and Danny, now a boy of four- 
teen, had never heard his uncle’s name. 


CHAPTER II 


A Special Delivery Letter 

RS. SHANNON was washing. The morning was fine. 
The sun shone, and a gentle breeze lightly flapped the 
sheets as they hung on the line. It was the kind of 
weather which would make most washerwomen happy. Mary 
Shannon sang at her work. 

Her voice was not musical. At times it missed a note, and 
flatted for a full measure. But it possessed the power of volume 
and the charm of feeling. It was only when the weather was 
perverse and clothes could not dry that the voice grew sharp ; 
or perhaps when a strong wind blowing from the north brought 
with it the sulphur- and smoke -laden fumes from the paper 
mills, covering the clothes with specks of black and yellow. 

Her repertoire was limited. She knew and sang but one 
song. When the sun was bright and the air clear, each morning 
for fifteen years Mary Shannon had sung that song. There were 
verses innumerable, but the last ones, not breathing the spirit of 
joy to harmonize with that which had found a permanent home 
in Mary Shannon's breast, were rarely heard. 

2 


M 


( 17 ) 



18 


DANNY 


The neighbors at the foot of The Hill had twice heard these 
last verses. Once, when Danny lay close to Death’s door, Mary 
Shannon had taken him in her arms and sang these words with 
their minor melodies ; again, when the men had carried Mike 
home, dead with the marks of the wheels on his body, she sang 
the song from beginning to end. 

This morning all was lovely. Joy bloomed in the heart of 
Mary Shannon. The world was a beautiful place and there 
were great reasons for her being happy! Was not the sun 
smiling down upon her with the mild rays of early summer? 
And a breeze coming up from the south, gently flapping the 
clothes, dried them as clothes should be dried. 

It was what she called a ghrand wash.” But then it was 
rarely she hung out any other kind. She would have felt out of 
her element had her tub been filled with any other than cambric 
and Val lace. When it came to muslins, her heart would have 
failed her. She had been brought up, as it were, on long cloth 
and fine linen. 

This morning she was quite content; for the petticoats on 
the line, filling themselves up until they looked like great bal- 
loons, were ruffled and trimmed, and the table-linen was of 
double damask. 

Every one on The Hill knew that Mary Shannon was happy, 


DANNY 


19 


for her voice rang out clear, and the words of her song were 
carried far beyond The Hill. 

“Och, Mavourneen, me’ darlint, 

Me colleen bawn is she. 

The beauty of Killarney 
Has sailed this side th’ say, 

But though she’s crossed the ocean, 

And lift the isle of grane. 

She’s brought its beauty with her, 

Colleen ! Col-leen ! Col-le-en !” 

Danny had been asleep in the lean-to, but, being disturbed 
by his mother’s voice, he rolled over, and rubbing his heavy 
eyes with his fists, slowly wakened. 

The washing was on the line. Mary Shannon was re-filling 
her tubs in preparation for a second wash, when a small boy 
appeared at the foot of The Hill. 

He wore a blue-gray suit with silver buttons. As he passed 
the shanties, the women with their skirts pinned up about 
them, with tousled hair, and slippered but stockingless feet, came 
forth to look upon him. Never before in the history of The 
Hill had a special delivery been known. The children paddlinf 
about in the mud of the streets, paused in their splashing and 
mud-slinging, and followed at his heels, eager to know what 
shanty he would visit. He passed the houses on the narrow 


20 


DANNY 


street below, and turned toward the path leading up The Hill. 

A few goats, nibbling the scanty growth of pennyroyal, 
raised their heads to look at him. With a few well-directed 
stones, he sent them flying in all directions. Then he paused 
long enough to count the smoke-stacks, and wonder at their 
number. Then, strolling leisurely on, he disappeared at last 
from view behind the Shannon family mansion. 

The children went back to the mud, and the women to 
their tubs while about and above them all rang the happy song 
of Mary Shannon. 


^‘Och, Mavourneen, me’ darlint, 

Me’ colleen bawn is she. 

The beauty of Killarney, 

Has sailed this side th’ say. 

An’ though she’s crossed the ocean, 
An’ lift the isle of grane, 

She’s brought its beauty with her, 
Colleen — Col-leen — C-o-l-le-en !” 


She had rinsed her last tub, and set it against the side of 
the house, when the messenger boy came slowly around the 
shanty. He stopped when he saw Mrs. Shannon, and began to 
unbutton his coat and fumble about in an inner pocket. At 
length he succeeded in finding his book and a letter. 


DANNY 


21 


‘‘Where’s Mike Shannon?” he asked. 

Mary Shannon dropped upon the up-turned tub. She mop- 
ped her sweaty brow with her apron. 

“ The Lord knows,” she said. 

She waited a few moments before venturing further 
information. 

“ He’s dead,” she added. 

The mind of the messenger boy worked as slowly as his 
feet. Conditions of this kind were new to him. He was not 
for a moment able to cope with them. He examined the letter 
thoroughly, turning it over from side to side as if he hoped 
to find there a solution for the problem before him. Then he 
looked at Mrs. Shannon. 

“Are you his wife?” he asked. 

“ Thot Oi was. But Oi’m his widder now, an’ have been 
iver since he died.” 

“Well, this letter is for him. If he’s dead, of course I 
can’t give it to him. Hadn’t you better take it?” 

Mrs. Shannon made no movement toward taking it. Let- 
ters were too uncommon, too mysterious, to be seized upon 
rashly. 

He dropped it into her lap. Taking it up, she looked it 
over. It was a large fine envelope with printing across one 


22 


DANNY 


corner. She held it gingerly between her fingers. She was 
not one to make free with letters. 

It’s from New York,” said the boy. 

‘‘New Yark! Now hain’t that ghrand! Do you know 
whose been a-sindin’ it?” 

“No; I don’t. You’ll find out if you open it.” 

“ It’s little it matters. Moike was a great hand fur knowin’ 
folks. Ye’r didn’t happiii to look at the printin’ acrost th’ 
corner, did you?” 

“Yes; that’s the name of a hospital in New York. Can’t 
you read?” 

“An’ if I could, what’d be the use of me botherin’ me 
head whin there’s a smart, loikely broth of a bhoy about loike 
yersilf? What horspistol, did ye say?” 

“ I can’t hang around here all day reading for you. Tve 
other places to go. You must sign your name here, though.” 

He held out pencil and book, and obligingly ran his finger 
along the line where she was to place her name. 

Mrs. Shannon took up the pencil and examined it fearfully, 
as though it were a bomb-shell to be handled with care. Then 
she returned it to the boy. 

“Me name?” she asked, “How can ye be askin’ sich things? 
Can’t ye say me hands are all wet and sloppy? Oidl put a 


DANNY 


23 


bit of a cross roight here, an' ye can be a-sayin' to thim what 
inquires, ‘ Toime was whin Mary Shannon wrote a rayfined an' 
ginteel hand, as inny one with a bit of lamin' moight rade 
with aze. But her writin' hain't what it used to be, an' her 
hands bein' a bit wet-loike, she's jist put down her mark.' " 

She smiled at the boy, and put down a cross opposite her 
name. He turned away satisfied. 

When he had gone, she sat and turned the letter about in 
her hand. She was not quick to read writing, and Danny was 
little better; for although she had given Danny ghrand " 
chances, he was not the boy to care for books, nor was she the 
hard-hearted mother to keep him in school when the weather 
out-doors was fine, and the sun shining down and warming the 
air made a boy tired-like and wanting to sleep! 

The door of the lean-to opening, Danny came out, rubbing 
his eyes, and stretching himself to get fully awake. His head, 
with its mop of thick hair looked as though the mice had been 
nesting in it. His face showed traces of last night's supper. 
His blue denim overalls, which served for night and day wear, 
were in need of both water and the iron. 

‘Ms that a letther ye have?" 

‘‘ That it is, Danny, me bhoy, but who 's been writin', I 
can't fur the loife of me tell." 


24 


DANNY 


Danny reached for the letter and tore it open. He read 
slowly and loud, spelling out each word and then going back 
and pronouncing all that came before. 

It was a long and laborious process, although the letter 
was short. Fortunately, to the satisfaction of Mrs. Shannon, 
his efforts were aloud, and she grasped the meaning as soon as 
Danny. 

Her broad fat face was aglow with pride. Had not her 
family been the recipient of the honor of a special delivery letter 
from New York? She was proud, too, of Danny’s reading — 
he was slow, to be sure, but ‘‘ginteel.” 

As the import of the letter became clear to her, her expres- 
sion changed. The light in her eyes faded. Her smile died 
away. The corners of her mouth drooped. 

Then Danny read the name signed there. It was a name 
new to both. 

Mrs. Shannon gave a sudden cry as he finished. Flinging 
her apron over her head, she swayed backwards and forwards 
on the tub, moaning aloud as she swayed. 

‘‘Yer a-takin’ it hard,” said Danny. 

Hard ! Who wouldn’t be a-takin’ it hard ? It’s ill luck 
that’s cornin’ to the Shannons. Ill luck ! Ill luck ! ” 


CHAPTER III 


^Hll Luck’s A-comin’ ” 

T THE disappearance of the messenger boy, the women 
at the foot of The Hill went back to their tubs, but 
not for the purpose of work alone. 

Their shanties, though not capacious, were confiding, affec- 
tionate creatures, leaning against each other for mutual support. 
Their arrangement inspired a friendly interest among the fam- 
ilies there — for the secrets of one family were the property 
of all. 

They were conveniently arranged for her, who, while hav- 
ing a natural appetite for a bit of news concerning her neigh- 
bors, was kept to her kitchen by innumerable washings and 
ironings. This wafting about of personal affairs kept up a lively 
interest among the neighbors, and served much the same social 
purpose as newspaper personals or afternoon teas served ill a 
different set. 

Mona Friel’s shanty was first at the foot of The Hill, and 
next to her, so close that they could talk over their tubs 

( 25 ) 




20 


DANNY 


'‘friendly loike ” together, was that occupied by Mrs. Murphy, 
known among her neighbors as Bid Murphy. 

They were fine women, both of them, and good at their 
work, wasting little time except to take a cup of " grane tay ’’ 
and have a bit of a talk in the morning when the clothes were 
on to boil. 

They were good women to be sure, but they were not born 
to the purple, as Mary Shannon. They also took in washings, 
but not from the same class of people. Their lines knew no 
real lace or cambric. Many times the muslins, flapping in the 
breeze before their doors, bore signs of patches. 

It is a delicate matter to mention, but he who writes the 
history of real people must not fail to chronicle facts. Patched 
muslins and darned flannels, flaunting themselves on lines stretch- 
ing along the narrow street, were items not to be hidden! All 
Goat Hill saw and noted. The place in society of Mona Friel 
and Bid Murphy was forever fixed. They did not complain. 
They recognized the necessity of a social line. So, while they 
called Mary Shannon proud, and a bit haughty, they knew 
there was reason for her pride and hauteur. They, too, would 
have been as she, had they been in her place. 

They rubbed on in silence for a while. Mary Shannon’s 
song came floating down to them. 


DANNY 


'' Some folks are great on the singing, Bid.” Mona paused 
on a downward rub of a sheet. 

That’s no lie ye’r tellin’, ” said Bid. 

^Mf I sung loike that, I’d — ” 

‘'You’d not be a livin’ next to me. There’d not be room 
fur us both.” 

“Now Bid, you’re not mainin’ it!” 

“ It’s no lie I’m spakin’.” 

“ There’s little danger of me yellin’ about loike that. If 
I’d be a-singin’ at the top of me lungs, loike thim we know, 
but hain’t a-mentionin’ names, you’d not be the only one to be 
lavin. Jerry’s no hand for havin’ wimmen schreechin’ about, 
an’ he’d be stoppin’ me quick-loike.” 

“I’m thinkin’, Mona Friel, that he’s over-quick to do the 
correction. Many’s the toime you’ve took more than you nade. 
If he was a man of moine he’d soon find there were two of 
us. I could spake up quick.” 

“ The beauty of Killarney 

Has sailed this side the say,’' 

rang down from the top of The Hill. 

“ She niver stopped near Goat Hill,” said Mona. “ Bid, 
do you hear that woman singin’ ? ” 


28 


DANNY 


‘‘ Hain’t I ears, and don't I live in this country?" 

‘‘You're a great hand fur jokin'." 

“They're tellin' me she's puttin' on ghrate stoile this spring! 
Thray new wrappers, they tell me, all in one wake." 

“ Ah, you're lyin' now." 

“No; it's the thruth. I'm tellin’ you. Thray! Think of it!" 

“ Hain't I thinkin’ ? It's well she’s being stoilish, whoile 
she can, for it won’t be long she’ll be able to be a-puttin' out 
two and thray washes a day, an’ I'm thinkin’ she’ll not be 
havin' thray wrappers thin." 

“ She’d better be layin' a cint by, now and then, for a rainy 
day whin she'll not be able to wash. What’ll she do whin she 
has niver a cint?" 

“There’s Danny! The toime’s cornin' whin he’ll be stip- 
pin' in her shoes, an' doin' by her as she’s been a-doin' by him.” 

Bid tossed her head, and snorted with disdain. 

“ It's a lie ye'r tellin’ now ! Danny Shannon 'll not be 
aimin' his salt, not to mention thray gowns. He's worthless 
now, but the toime is cornin’ whin he’ll be more than that, and 
Mary Shannon 'll not be the proud woman she is this day!” 

“ There's thruth in that ! Lend me a bit of soap. Bid ! " 

Leaving her tub. Bid passed over to her neighbor's door 
and stood with soap in hand. 


DANNY 


29 


I hain’t one to kape a helpin’ hand from a naybor whin 
she’s in nade; but Mary Shannon’s kipt so to herself, and 

niver so much as stuck her nose inside my door, an’ niver once 
has she said, — whin I was a-walkin’ by, an’ her tay smellin’ 
so foine an’ sthrong ye could smill it a square of¥, — niver once 
did she say : ' Stip in, Bid Murphy, an’ wet your whistle.’ 
So, whoile I hain’t one to kape back whin thim I know has 
nade of a helpin’ hand, but I do say, an’ I say it to you, 
Mona Friel, I’ll stip niver a bit out of me way, if the toime 
comes whin Mary Shannon’s nadin’ a naybor.” 

Yer lyin’ now. Bid. Ye’ll be the first there, an’ riddy 

to help. I’m knowin’ ye of old. Bid Murphy.” 

‘‘No; it’s the thruth I’m tellin’ ye. Wait, Mona Friel, 

and say fer yerself.” 

The song which had come down from The Hill ceased. 

The women rubbed their clothes in silence. Not a breeze was 
stirring! The silence was deep enough to be felt. 

Suddenly the song rang forth again! But the tone had 
changed. It was no longer a happy woman, but one in the 
frenzy of grief, who sang the last verses of “ Colleen Bawn.” 

The women at the foot of the hill stopped their rubbing 
to listen. 


30 


DANNY 


‘‘Oi’ve sane the sky at mornin’ 

Flush rid fur full a wake. 

But it was pale beside the flush 
That came to Colleen’s chake. 

Her chakes were loike twin rhoses rid, 

Frish sprung from the sod o’ grane 
But now th’ Ayster lilies bloom, 

On th’ chakes of my Colleen. 

Och, how me heart grew heavy 
Whin Oi heard her weary soigh 
Whin Oi knew for love of the home-land. 

She’d laid her down to die. 

The hours are days grown longer ! 

No sunloight shlips betwane. 

Och, me heart is hungry for ye, 

Colleen! Colleen! Colleen!” 

She sang jist so whin her ould man died,” said Bid. 

‘‘ It was thim viry words whin Danny had the fever ! ” 

Bridget Murphy let the wet sheet drop back into the tub with 
a splash. 

She turned from her own shanty and called out to Ag 
Flannagan as she passed, ‘‘ Ag, put on the praties fur me, an' 
fry a slice or more of bacon fur me ould man’s dinner, if I 
hain't here in toime. Mary Shannon, dear heart, is in throuble, 
Oi know, an’ she'll be a-nadin’ me, now.” 

Awaiting no reply she passed on to the footpath, Mona 


DANNY 


51 


Friel following at a slower pace, being no longer light on her 
feet. 

More than Ag Flannagan had heard Bridget Murphy’s 
words. Young and old came to the doors of their shanties, 
and with arms akimbo stood for a moment looking about them. 
Then, seeing in which direction the line of march tended, they 
joined the procession. Soon a steady stream moved up The 
Hill; children hurrying along, stumbling over some, and pushing 
others roughly from the way, while their elders advanced at a 
rate inversely proportionate to their avoirdupois. 

Bid Murphy led the van that turned the corner, and came 
upon Mary Shannon and her grief. 

There were no tears; only that song in its awesome key. 

Mrs. Shannon was walking up and down before the door. 
Danny sat on the up-turned tub, his serious gray eyes bent reflect- 
ively upon his toes, and the open letter yet in his hand. 

Bid’s eyes rested on the letter. Then hurrying into the 
shanty she dragged out the solitary rocker there, gently forced 
Mary Shannon into it, all the while talking to her and soothing 
her as though she were a child. 

There, dear heart, set down a bit and rock yoursilf ! 
There, that’s better! Oi hain’t knowin’ what’s ailin’ ye, Mary 
Shannon, but this Oi know, if there’s throuble, there’s some 


32 


DANNY 


way of helpin’ it, an’ if there hain’t , it’s got to be borne. An’ 
ayther way, Mary Shannon, tears hain’t goin’ to help it none. Set 
there, dear heart, whoile Oi make ye a cup of tay. It’s bracin’.” 

Mary Shannon stopped singing and sat down. Yet she con- 
tinued to rock to and fro and moan aloud. 

The women, their hands spread out upon their broad hips, 
crowded about her, shaking their heads back and forth, sighing 
great sighs in concert, until it seemed like a bellows at work, 
and secretly wondering what it was all about. They half- 
envied the woman who had so “ ginteel ” a grief that it came 
from New York and was carried forth by a boy in uniform. 

The children had gathered thick as goats. The toddling 
ones clinging to their mothers’ petticoats, and beholding the grief 
of their elders, set up a second chorus, less in volume and lower 
in pitch, but their best. 

Inside the shanty. Bid Murphy having tea, clear and strong, 
bore it forth to her afflicted neighbor. 

'‘God love ye, Mary Shannon, can’t ye be takin’ it aisy? 
There hain’t nothin’ so bad but what it moight be considerable 
worse.” 

When all the expressions of sympathy and blarney seemed 
wasted, Mona Friel, the brave one, dared venture the question: 

"What’s ailin’ ye, Mary Shannon?” 



‘'Can’t ye be takin’ it aisy?” 

















. a ■ - , 

>• ' X'^ • JR-*^ ■^Vi* 






DANNY 


33 


''Ailin’ me? It’s ill luck that’s come to the Shannons! 
It’s Tom Shannon’s chiuld, an’ it’s me that’ll be wurrukin’, to 
kape her. She’s a bit of a gurrul, an’ll be nadin’ me a-waitin’ 
on her noight an’ day. But it hain’t that Oi’m carin’ for. Oi 
hain’t afraid of wurruk, the Lord knows. It’s me Danny, Oi’m 
thinkin’ of. She’ll be having no lamin’ or trainin’ an’ she’ll be 
goin’ to the bad an’ draggin’ Danny along.” 

The women heaved great sighs and shook their heads, and 
gave each other sidewise glances. 

"That’s no lie,” said Mona Friel. 

Bid Murphy tossed back her head and sniffed, " She’ll have 
no nade of draggin’, he’ll go aisy enough! Don’t be a-worryin’ 
about that, Mary Shannon ! How do you know but she may be 
a ghrand foine gurrul that ye’ll be prhoud to say a stippin’ from 
your shanty ! The Lord knows ye may be a holdin’ yer head 
hoigher than iver, an’ be sayin’ to folks in your ghrand way, 
'She’s me naice from New York’, an’ ye’ll not be slapin’ at 
noights fur thinkin’ how ghrand she is.” 

"That’s no lie. Bid Murphy!” 

But Bid Murphy’s encouraging words were useless as the 
wind. 

" Hain’t Oi a-knowin’ what she’ll be ? Her mither’s folks 
were say-captains. Ye all know what a murderin’, thavin’. 


34 


DANNY 


stalin’ set they are! Hain’t I humid about thim? Don’t be 
tellin’ me she’s ‘ foine an’ ghrand.’ She’s not able to waalk a 
stip, an’ she’ll be loike the gang she’s been raised among. It’s 
ill luck that’s cornin’ ! I fale it in me bones 1 Don’t be 
a-talkin’ to me. It’s ill luck that’s cornin’ to the Shannons 
whin they’re holdin’ their heads the hoighest.” 

At her words the children set up a cry : ‘‘ It’s ill luck 
that’s a-comin’ 1 111 luck ! Ill luck ! ” 

The women talked, sympathized and encouraged, but Mary 
Shannon was not to be comforted. She conjured up visions of 
this unkempt, vicious descendant of pirates, who was to come 
down like a rapacious bird of prey upon the happiness of the 
Shannon family. 

The news, like a dark storm-cloud, spread until from the 
top to the bottom of Goat Hill, and even so far as Drury’s 
Run and Shintown, all had heard of the trouble that had come 
to Mary Shannon. 

Had all the sighs that were then sighed been merged into one, 
what a roll of thunder would have swept the peaceful valley ! Had 
all the tears fallen at once, how deep the dust would have been laid ! 

But neither sighs nor tears availed. Ill luck was coming 
to Goat Hill, to find a home with Mary Shannon. 

It was ill luck ! Ill luck ! 


CHAPTER IV 


Nora Shannon’s Journey 

N A parlor car on a New York Limited early one morn- 
ing a woman and a little child were seated. The 

interest of the other passengers was centered about 
It may have been the strong, pure face of the woman, 
from which every trace of selfish interest had been effaced, her 
distinguished appearance, or her clear eyes with their serene 
expression, that attracted and held the interest of all. Her 

manner toward the chijd was one of unconscious tenderness and 
sympathy. Love, perhaps more than courtesy for mere con- 
vention’s sake, marked each delicate attention. 

The child was barely a dozen years old. Her hair, yellow 
as gold, hung like a mesh of silk about a pale, thin face whose 

forehead was masked with purple veins, and whose cheeks were 

as white as the Easter lilies, about which Mary Shannon sang. 

When she raised the lashes, whose dark fringe swept her 

cheeks, she uncovered eyes as clear and gray and Madonna-like 
as Danny Shannon’s own. She had a bright, keen little face; 

( 35 ) 



them. 



36 


DANNY 


showing interest in all about her, though through the whole 
long day she never moved, but sat with her feet on the woman's 
chair, and a soft, white, wool shawl thrown across her knees. 

For a while she looked out of the widow, watching the 
long stretch of farms and orchards flying by. No hills short- 
ened her view. She could see as far as sight could carry, a 
long, undulating stretch of flelds of oats, showing their green 
heads, or miles of apple-trees in bloom, looking like an immense 
bouquet tied together by the narrow bands of brown roads which 
wound about them. 

She was unassuming, making no ef¥ort to claim the atten- 
tion or service of those about her. Perhaps some wiser, older 
head had taught her not to think of self at all. She would 
have been quite content to watch the whirling landscape ; but 
each one in the car claimed her attention in their efforts to 
make the journey less tedious to her. 

The porter on each journey through the car, stopped to 
point out the places of interest, or to adjust the shades that 
the light should not fall too strongly upon her eyes. 

The gouty old gentleman who had been having no end of 
trouble, and who growled all the way from Boston to New 
York, grew affable, even going so far as to carry to the child 
the comic sheet from his paper. He bent over her chair, teach- 


DANNY 


37 


ing her how to cut out the puzzle pictures. They grew quite 
merry together over the intricacies of a blue-faced Chinaman 
whose head was in one place, and heels they knew not where — 
surely not in their legitimate place. The silver head sometimes 
bent so low that it touched the gold. Those beyond them saw 
the lovely picture, and in the hearts of some of these came 
beautiful fancies. Some in their thoughts grew bold and valor- 
ous for the protection of the purity and innocence of youth ; 
some grew tender toward the weaknesses and helplessness of age. 

The two, unconscious of the thoughts they were conjuring 
up in the minds of those about them, bent their heads closer 
and grew merry together. 

One man, who for whole long days had sat apart, nursing 
in his heart a bitterness because he knew not the reason for a 
little child being taken from his arms, looked long and long at 
the little white-cheeked girl whose legs were stretched stiff before 
her. What he thought, no one knew. What he said to him- 
self, no one heard, but it sounded as though he had whispered 
to himself, Thy will be done.'' But whatever it was, it acted 
like an electric battery upon his body. Arising quickly, he 
passed to where the child and old man were attempting to cut 
out the puzzle. 

‘‘Try these scissors," he said, and lingering to offer sugges- 


/ 


38 


DANNY 


tions, added, I had a little girl who cut them out like this.” 

The child and old man looked up at him and smiled. They 
understood, but they made no answer. He had not said, I 
have a little girl.” 

He lingered until the puzzle was arranged. Then as he 
turned aside, he touched the soft shawl which had been flung 
over her knees. 

Is the trouble here?” he asked. 

‘"Yes,” replied the child, was ill and since then my 
knees will not bend.” 

All day each person in the car forgot himself and his own 
interests to make the journey brighter for the child, until at 
last Miss Morgan suggested that she must have quiet. 

She sat close to the window where she could see the farms 
and towns hurrying past. The scenes had changed. The long 
stretch of orchards and vineyards had disappeared. Hills began 
to raise their rocky heads. There were no great fprests and 
but little brush, only rocky slopes dotted with great wooden 
racks rising into the air like skeleton towers, and about all was 
a smell of gas and oil, so strong that it seemed to fill the car. 
This was the heart of the greatest oil region of the world. And 
the throbbing engines on these mountain heights sent a stream 
of oil to all parts of the world. 


DANNY 


39 


The view was monotonous. The child grew tired. She 
turned to rest her head on Miss Morgan’s shoulder. 

“Will we soon be there?’’ she asked. 

“ It will not be long. In half an hour, perhaps. I must 
leave you soon. I change cars at Ridgeway. The remainder 
of the way you will be alone. The porter will assist you, and 
your Aunt Mary will meet you at the station. There will be 
nothing to fear.” 

“ I am not afraid. Miss Morgan ; but I do wish you were 
going with me. Everyone there will be strange.” 

“ But your own people, Nora. They will not be strangers 
long. Your cousin is but little older than you. You may find 
him a pleasant companion. You will soon know his friends, 
and they will make the summer pleasant for you.” 

“ Do you know. Miss Morgan, it is Danny and his friends 
I dread most of all ! Boys are so big and rough. They never 
know how it hurts when they slam doors. He will not care 
about a girl who can’t go boating or play tennis. I know how 
it will be! He’ll have a pile of fishing-rods, and will talk about 
sport, and will not like it at all if I scream when he brings 
in those wriggling, red baits. I never did like squirming worms. 
I really dread meeting Danny! But with Aunt Mary I shall 
feel quite different. I know I shall love her at once.” 


40 


DANNY 


I hope so, Nora/’ 

‘‘ I know I shall ! I am quite prepared for loving her at 
once. What a queer name they give their place, ' The Hill.’ 
Dr. Bach calls his summer home, ‘ The Tamarack ’ — because 
there are trees of that kind there; and once when I was little, 
mamma took me off in the country to the dearest place called 
‘ The Bobbin’s Nest.’ You see, Miss Morgan, the name of the 
people was Robbins. I fancy Aunt Mary’s house will be a big, 
white affair standing on a hill. There will be a great porch 
with pillars, and a big, big yard with apple-trees. I never saw 
an apple-tree, but I’ve thought a great deal about them. Don't 
you think there will be apple-trees?” 

‘‘ I do not know, Nora. I hope so.” 

‘‘ All the morning I shall sit on the porch or under the trees. 
Perhaps the apples will drop near enough for me to reach them! 
Won’t that be fun? Dr. Bach said I should have plenty of sun 
and air. I wish he could see how I shall live at Aunt Mary's ! 
He would think I was getting plenty. Perhaps when the sum- 
mer’s gone and I go back to the hospital, I shall be quite fat.” 

She stretched out her thin, transparent hands, with the blue 
lines showing, and gazed at them critically. 

‘‘ There’s not much fat there now,” she said. 

‘‘ It is pleasant to think of your growing plump and pink- 


DANNY 


41 


cheeked/' Miss Morgan said, and smiled to encourage the hope. 
Yet she was not sanguine that all things would be as the child 
was imagining. 

‘‘The doctor told me a great many things to do!" She 
held up her thin fingers and counted them of¥ — “ Live in the 
sunshine; go to bed early; sleep with the windows open, that's 
three; eat juicy steak and cream; one thing more. Miss Morgan, 
— but Dr. Bach always adds that to all his prescriptions, — 
don't talk about your pains — and more than that, don't think 
of them. Forget — forget as often as you can." 

“ I shall do all he tells me. Renova is not a big place, 
you told me — quite a country town, not a bit like New York. 
I've been in the country before. One summer father took me 
along the Hudson. I love the country. Miss Morgan. There 
is nothing but grass and flowers and trees and lovely houses 
with porches all about them, and no paved streets, not one; only 
just soft, brown roads that don't clatter." 

“ Ever since that first day when you told me about Aunt 
Mary, I made up my mind what her home would be like. I've 
set my heart on there being apple-trees in bloom. I saw a 
bunch of apple-blossoms once. Miss Richardson brought them 
to the kindergarten, and we sang a little song about them. It 
was something about ‘Apple blossoms, pink and white! ah, be- 


42 


DANNY 


hold the pretty sight ! ’ But that was years ago, and I have 
forgotten the rest of the song/’ 

‘‘ When the weather is fine, I shall sit under the apple-trees 

all day long. Then I shall sit in the kitchen. I never sat in a 

really kitchen. The kitchens in flats are only make-believes, Miss 
Morgan. They are not really. Aunt Mary’s kitchen will be a 
great big place with a white wood floor, a big stove and plenty 
of windows, and every window will have morning-glories twin- 
ing up them. There’ll be braided rugs and a cat asleep on one. 

That’s the way country kitchens are. There’s always a cat. 

I’ve read about them in story books, so I know just what to 
expect.” 

But, Renova, Nora, is not in the country. It is a town. 
Some one told me that it was packed close together in among 
the mountains. Perhaps your Aunt Mary may have no yard.” 

'‘Oh, yes. Miss Morgan. Her home is called 'The Hill.’ 
A pretty name for a country house, I think. I’m glad I can 
see things before they really happen. It’s lots of fun. So if 
they never really do happen, you’ve seen them just the same, 
and you get a great deal of comfort out of that. Now, Aunt 
Mary is plump and round and she’ll tuck her dress in at the 
throat while she’s working, and she’ll wear a white apron trim- 
med with home-made lace.” 


DANNY 


43 


The child laughed merrily. You see, Miss Morgan^ you 
told me that I might not find Aunt Mary a bit like my mother. 
So I thought of her entirely different. That ' plump and round ’ 
don't seem a bit like my mother! Does it, Miss Morgan?" 

‘‘Not a little bit!" There came before Miss Morgan, as 
she spoke, the memory of a beautiful, slender woman, cultivated 
and high-bred in manner and mind; a woman who conversed in 
several tongues, and whose musical conception and execution was 
such as to rank her among artists. 

Miss Morgan had suggested to the child that this unknown 
aunt might be different from her mother. Nora grasped the 
suggestion only in thinking that perfection of womanhood may 
come in different physiques. 

Miss Morgan was about to speak more plainly. Then she 
hesitated. Whatever the state of affairs on “ The Hill," it was 
the only home open to the child. She must take it as she 
found it. 

Miss Morgan feared the worst. She remembered the first 
appearance at clinics of young Tom Shannon. He was an un- 
couth, untaught lad, careless of dress and rude of manner but 
with marvelous brain power and high ambitions. She had 
watched him through his college course. She had been head 
nurse when he came to the hospital as a young physician with 


44 


DANNY 


new ideas and new theories. She watched the struggle later 
cultivation was making against the habits of youth. 

She had learned to honor and respect the man, and was 
glad when she saw him step within the circle he had coveted. 
He had won his laurels by his own earnest endeavors and took 
his place among men as one who had proved his right to be 
among them. 

But the mind of the child was not to be turned lightly 
aside from the pictures it had formed. 

'‘Don’t you think it will be so, Miss Morgan?” 

" I hope it will be so, Nora. But many times our dreams 
do not come true. Dr. Bach told me your aunt is a widow. 
Perhaps she has but little, Nora. She may not be able to give 
you all the beautiful things your father did when he lived. We 
know only that she has promised you a home. So whether 
that home be a mansion or but a bare room, remember always 
that it is their best and they are sharing their much or their 
little with you. The spirit of the act itself must make you 
grateful.” 

" But it must be as I wish ! I do not care about great 
stone mansions. They must be very stifif places to live in ! 
But I should die if it was a little place like some you see down 
in the city. I should give up and die.” 


DANNY 


45 


‘^Then you are a very different kind of girl from what I 
have been thinking you. The brave bear all things ! Only 
cowards give up. Whatever the place may be, God has seen 
fit to send you there — for some purpose. Perhaps that you 
may learn to be patient, and sweet, and brave.’’ 

But, Miss Morgan,” the lips trembled and the voice fal- 
tered, ‘‘But, Miss Morgan, you forget! I never can be strong.” 

“Not strong in body, perhaps. There are many ways of 
being strong. It is not bodily strength I covet most for you. 
Perhaps God has sent you here to find some work He wishes 
you to do — that only you can do.” 

The child leaned back and laughed. It was lovely to think 
that perhaps God had picked her out to do some work even 
though her knees were stiff, and queer, sharp pains ran up and 
down her back. It was simply lovely to think that she was 
important enough for God to pick from among all His people to 
work for Him. She a little bit of a girl whose knees would 
not bend — a little girl who could never walk. 

The porter passed through the car and stopped at Miss 
Morgan’s chair. 

“ The next station’s Ridgeway, lady.” 

She turned to collect her baggage. 

“ I must leave you here, Nora.” She stooped to kiss the 


46 


DANNY 


child’s pale cheek. ‘‘ Remember that Dr. Bach expects you to 
be strong and rosy-cheeked when he sees you again. But 
whether the rosy cheeks come or not, I shall hope to find a little 
girl that is strong enough to be happy wherever she is sent.” 

She quitted the car. The child went back to her bright 
dreams, bringing before her mind many beautiful pictures of her 
Aunt Mary and her home on ‘‘The Hill.” 


CHAPTER V 


A Bit of a White Rosebud 

HILE all The PTill sorrowed with Mary Shannon there 
was, nevertheless, in the hearts of many a thrill of 
pleasurable excitement. 

guest from New York was not to be ignored, although 
her father had, as a boy, run off from a '' dacent an’ respectable 
job,” and her ghrandfaather on her mither’s side was a mur- 
derin’, thavin’ pirate, bein’ a captain of a shtameboat.” 

The Hill was fine of its kind, but even its staunchest friends 
and those most zealous of its good name and fame^ :ould not 
deny that in one or two particulars New York was a trifle 
ahead. 

The afternoon following the receipt of the news and the 
next day, on the evening of which the girl was to arrive, the 
pennyroyal-bordered path to Mary Shannon’s cottage was a much 
traveled thoroughfare. Young and old found some excuse for 
dropping in, each declaring herself able to stay but a moment, 
because of the duties that clamored for her at home, yet not one 

( 47 ) 




48 


DANNY 


went away without her ‘‘dhrop of tay'' and a bit of news — the 
news being all that Mary Shannon knew of the expected guest. 

The letter had mentioned her only as Dr. Shannon’s 
daughter. There had been no suggestions as to her age or 
name. 

But Mary Shannon built no fairy-castles. She pruned 
closely every branch of hope the neighbors in their whole-heart- 
edness offered. 

‘‘A cup of tay” was her solace. She drank with every 
one who dropped in to condole with her, and with each sip she 
groaned aloud, or cried out that “ 111 luck was a-coming to 
the Shannons. Ill luck ! Ill luck ! ” 

While the little, fair-haired child, alone in the drawing-car, 
sat dreaming of the beauties of that home to which she was 
hurrying, the people there were bemoaning her coming, and 
wondering in their minds if it would be quite safe to have such 
a vicious person among them. It was with a feeling of relief 
they remembered that she could not walk. Surely, then, they 
could not be murdered while they slept, or their shanties robbed 
at midnight. 

It was only the younger women who had no such forebod- 
ings. They looked forward to the coming with a certain degree 
of expectant pleasure. 


DANNY 


49 


Mona Harrigar who had long been the belle of Tipperary 
and Goat Hill, laid her piece of mirror upon the window sill, 

and took an inventory of her charms. She was fearful! If 

this ill luck were a young woman direct from New York, with 

all the airs and graces which city life is supposed to give, then 

Mona had much to fear. But then, and Mona's heart grew light 
at the thought, she would bring with her new ideas and new 
fashions, and Mona was neither slow to see or adopt. 

The matrons had gathered about Mary Shannon, debating 
the question who should go to the station and meet the coming guest. 

Not for worlds would Mary Shannon have gone herself! 
She knew the duties of a hostess too well for that! She would 
stand at her own door, and giving the girl a hand, would shake 
a bit. She would be a bit formal like, yet grand ! It was a 
way the Judge's wife did, and quite the proper thing! 

Sending Danny was not to be considered for a moment 
as he had declared at an early stage of the game he was no 
hand for girls." Since the news of ill luck's possible arrival, 
he had shunned the shanty as though it were under a small-pox 
quarantine. 

Monica Friel was willing and would have offered her ser- 
vices, but her man wurruked late an' she had a bit to be 
a-settin' out fur him." 


50 


DANNY 


Bid Murphy looked on, but made no ofifer to do this ser- 
vice. Nor did she give excuse for this lack of neighborly feel- 
ing. It was not until the others had all ])iesented reasonable 
excuses, that Bid spoke up. 

Ye’ll be a-thinkin’ Oi’m mane an’ not a standin’ by a 
naybor in throuble. Now won’t ye? God knows Oi hain’t 
that! But Oi’ve raysons, Mary Shannon!” 

‘‘Then fur God’s sake, tell us. Bid Murphy,” said Mary 
Shannon. 

“ Bid Murphy hain’t the one to go about, not lookin’ nate. 
She hain’t the one to be a-havin’ her frinds ashamed of her. 
That hain’t Bid Murphy’s stoile! It’s the thruth, Oi’m tellin’ 
ye ! Oi’d go, and be glad to do it, but I hain’t a daycent 
dud to me back. Oi won’t be matin’ her at the train, an’ 
havin’ her think th’ wimmen of The Hill don’t know the 
stoiles. Oi’ve pride enough for that, though Oi say it as 
shouldn’t.” 

“It’s ghrand, if ye take it so. Bid Murphy. Yer the one 
to be doin’ it, though. Ye have a way with you. Bid Mur- 
phy.” It was Monica Friel who spoke. 

“If me blue wrapper’d fit ye, ye could have it an’ wel- 
come,” said Kate Hooligan, “ But ye’re gettin’ a bit stout. Bid 
Murphy.” 


DANNY 


51 


Kate looked down complacently upon her own slender phy- 
sique — slender by comparison. She weighed but a trifle above 
one hundred and fifty. Her suggestion, however, opened the way 
for offers from others. 

‘‘There’s thim that hain’t so thin as you, Kate; thim that 
has plenty of foine clothes.” Monica threw back her head, and 
sniffed aloud. Let her shaft strike where it would, it was 
little she cared. 

“If it’s me, ye mane, Monica Friel, it’s wilcome she is to 
one or all, sayin’ it’s me company she’s goin’ to mate. Try on 
the blue one, with the rid poky-dot. Bid Murphy. It’s hangin’ 
behind the door.” 

Kate took down the skirt, and flinging it over the back of 
a chair, stood back and gazed at it. 

“ It's ghrand ! Oi’ve had me moind set on a wrapper loike 
that for thray summers. But me man hain’t been wurrukin’ of 
late.” 

“Thim ruffles are stoilish — if I do say it mesilf — and full. 
Oi'm no hand for skimpin’ whin it comes to ruffles.” 

Kate stepped back for a better view. Her red fists were 
planted squarely upon her broad hips, and her elbows were at 
right angles. She expressed her admiration of the wrapper with 
sighs and a great heaving of her chest and abdomen. The 


52 


DANNY 


other women in the room, except the hostess, who held it bad 
form to express much feeling in regard to her own property, 
also sighed, until for several seconds there was quite a furnace- 
like puffing in the room. 

‘‘Try it on, Bid Murphy,’' said Kate. 

“ It’s far too ghrand fur the loikes of me.” 

“That’s a lie. Bid Murphy,” urged Mary Shannon. Thus 
encouraged. Bid put herself into the hands of Kate and Monica, 
and was squeezed into the gown. 

Kate put all her strength to drawing the waist together, 
until the hooks and eyes met. 

“ Now, don’t brathe too dape. Bid Murphy,” she remarked, 
mopping her brow, for she had perspired under the effort. 

Mona stepped aside and looked Bid over. Then she nodded 
her head in approval. “ Ye cirtinly look will,” she said. 

“ It’s a ghrand dress, an’ ye’re lookin’ ghrand in it ; though 
Oi’m sayin’ it as hain’t the roight, the dress bain’ me own,” 
said Mary Shannon. “It’s toime. Bid Murphy, ye’re off. Ye’ll 
nade be takin’ ye’r toime, seein’ as ye’re laced in a bit.” 

Bid picked up her own dress from the floor and mopped 
her brow with it. Then without further word — for the dress 
was too tight to risk much — followed by the women, she started 
down The Hill. 


DANNY 


53 


Her escorts dropped off in groups of twos and threes, but 
Bid, breathing in short gasps without so much as turning her 
head, went on. 

On a side street she saw Danny, who disappeared at the 
sight of her, lest he be pressed into service. 

Mrs. Murphy reached the station in time to see the porter 
carry out a light, wheeled chair, and the trainman follow him 
with a child in his arms. Then they looked about them, and 
seeing no one who seemed to be looking for a child, spoke 
together. At that moment, Bridget Murphy came steaming up. 
She took possession of the child and chair, before either attend- 
ant realized what she was about. 

For a moment, the child was bewildered by the change of 
scene, the noise and confusion of the station, and the manner 
in which she had been taken possession of. It was some time 
before she ventured to speak. 

‘'You are not my Aunt Mary?’' she asked. 

“ That Oi hain’t ! Oi’m Mrs. Bridget Murphy, frind an’ 
naybor to Mary Shannon, an’ a ghrand woman she is! A bit 
phroud, Oi must say, but she’s raysons fur it. She holds her 
head hoigh, but who wouldn’t?” 

She paused for breath. The pale face, and the thin hands 
with the veins showing in them, touched the woman. 


54 


DANNY 


But don't worry a bit about that, Colleen. She’s phroucl 
but she’s diver. Ye’re one of her own, an’ full as ghrand as 
Mary Shannon hersilf. She’s kind an’ she’s ginerous, an’ it’s 
her wrapper Oi have on this virry minute.” 

They left the broad street and turned off onto a tanbark 
road. Mrs. Murphy, forgetful of her dress, was moving for- 
ward rapidly. 

The tanbark was flanked with cottages growing smaller and 
dirtier as they advanced. At every door stood slovenly men 
and women who kept their eyes upon Mrs. Murphy and the 
child as long as they were in sight. 

A boy in dirty undershirt and blue overalls stood leaning 
against the blank side of a shanty. His great, soulful, gray eyes, 
with their fringes of black, had an expression such as artists 
love to put upon canvas. 

He attracted Nora’s attention at once. She turned for a 
second look at him, but he shrunk back into the alley away 
from her gaze. Bridget Murphy hurried on, up the pennyroyal- 
bordered path to the top of The Hill. 

'' There’s Mary Shannon’s place,” said Mrs. Murphy with a 
proud gesture toward the unpainted, storm-beaten shanty. 

The child looked about her. The lowering night was over 
all. Beyond lay a sea of waves dull, gray, foreboding. 


DANNY 


55 


The child pressed her lips together and whispered, I must 
be brave. Miss Morgan said I must be brave.’' 

At this critical moment Mary Shannon came to the door of 
her shanty. She stopped suddenly when she saw the child. Her 
rough face softened. 

Stepping forward, she took the child in her great brawny 
arms, suddenly grown soft and tender. 

'^Ah, Colleen, dear heart! Ye’re loike a bit of a white 
rhose-bud, ye lamb. But ye’ll grow rid an’ rosy here, Colleen.” 

The child looked up into the woman’s face and tried to 
smile. Instead, she buried her face against the broad bosom and 
sobbed aloud. 


CHAPTER VI 


Danny Meets Nora 

HE June days following Nora's arrival at The Hill were 
almost too hot to be borne. Little rain fell. Neither 
tree nor vine shaded the shanty. From morning until 
the house stood in the full glare of the sun. 
the edge of the lean-to, shaded during the morning by 
the higher part of the shanty, Mary Shannon through all the 
work days of the week rubbed and rinsed and hung up clothes, 
only to rub and rinse and hang up more clothes. 

There had been plenty to do before, when she had but her- 
self and Danny to provide for. The little girl meant one more 
mouth to feed, and one more mouth meant extra washings. 

She had no time to am'use or entertain the child, but she 
did her duty by her in a practical way. Never before had the 
child’s wrappers so nearly rivaled the snow in whiteness. How- 
ever big the washing or however much her tired muscles ached, 
Mary Shannon never neglected the child’s bath and hairbrushing. 
In the midst of her work, when the clothes were slow to boil, 
( 56 ) 


T 



evening 

At 


DANNY 


57 


e stuck her head through the doorway and talked with the 
aid. 

When the twilight came, she sat in the doorway with Nora 
in her arms, and together they watched the shadows lower, and 
the lights in the town below show one by one like stars. 

The tree-toads brought out a full orchestra for them, and 
Nora, cuddling up close to the broad bosom of her aunt, looked 
down upon it all, and although she was brave and kept the 
tears from falling, and laughed at the tree-toads’ chorus, she 
could not keep from wondering why she had been sent there. 

She had not yet seen Danny. The child felt, rather than 
knew, that he was bringing some shadow to his mother’s heart. 

Each evening she heard him leave the kitchen, soon after 
the supper hour, and it was always late at night when he 
returned. 

If the sorrow was creeping into Mary Shannon’s heart, she 
kept it to herself, and it was always with smiling countenance 
she met her friends. 

Had Mary Shannon been able to express herself on the 
subject, she would have shown a delicacy of feeling that too 
often is claimed as a prerogative of the cultivated mind. 

'' It hain’t me way,” she might have said, '' to be a-slan- 
derin’ me own ! ” 


58 


DANNY 


But Nora, whose intuition had been sharpened by so many 
hours of being alone, knew much that was never told in words. 

As she sat on her aunt’s lap in the twilight, her thin white 
cheeks resting against the broad bosom, she learned of the sor- 
row that could not be put into words. 

How long the woman would sit, with her eyes scanning the 
distant bend of the pennyroyal-bordered path, with pain and 
anxiety in her eyes, although her lips were singing the sweet 
tender strains of the one Irish love-song she knew. 

Nora understood, and learned not to ask for Danny; but she 
knew the hour that he slung himself lazily down the hill, and 
the hour when he crawled back to his heap of straw in the 
lean-to. 

As the summer advanced, the heat of the room grew un- 
bearable. Nora made a brave efifort to bear it without com- 
plaining. But when the mercury took a rapid jump into the 
nineties, her self-control gave way. The room was suffocating! 
She could not, she would not stand it one moment longer! She 
heard Danny outside in the shade of the shanty — no doubt 
lying in the cool, and being quite comfortable. 

She drew herself by her hands across the bed to the side 
of the wall. Then with all her strength she brought her fists 
down against the planks until they fairly rattled and all the 


DANNY 


59 


while calling Danny ! Danny ! with the full strength of her 
lungs. 

But Danny was either slow to hear or loath to obey. He 
made no response. 

Nora pounded again and again and cried Danny ! Danny!'’ 
It was quite evident to the lad outside, trying to take a quiet 
nap in the shade of the shanty, that she did not mean to give 
it up until he came. 

He yawned, stretched himself, and then came slowly in — 
slowly even for Danny. The pace of a snail would have seemed 
rapid in comparison. 

Nora looked at him as he stood in the doorway. For a 
moment, she could not speak. She had not expected much of 
Danny, but this lazy, slovenly apparition in the doorway was 
even less than she had expected ! His hair was uncombed. His 
feet bare. His overalls crumpled and dirty and his face marked 
with streaks of black soot. 

He raised his long-fringed lashes and looked calmly at her. 
Then Nora forgot the matted hair and dirty overalls ! There 
was a calmness and serenity in the boy's eyes that riveted her 
attention. 

‘H’ve wanted you so badly, Danny! Will you come here? 
I’m your cousin^ Nora Shannon." 


60 


DANNY 


Danny shuffled closer. He did not look embarrassed — 
merely bored — bored to death by her importunities. 

She held out her hand. Won’t you shake hands with 
me? ” 

Surely there seemed no escape! Girls are queer creatures! 
They hang on so when they quite make up their minds. He 
allowed himself to be taken by the hand. He took no active 
part in the hand-shake. He was neutral. He suffered himself 
merely to be a party in it. When the formality was over, he 
groaned and shifted the weight of his body to the foot that 
had been hanging at rest for a time. 

‘‘Why have you never come in to see me, Danny?” 

“ Oi hain’t niver been no hand fur gurruls.” 

Nora laughed. “But I’m your cousin, Danny!” 

“That may all be. Oi’m not denyin’ it. But Oi hain’t niver 
been no hand fur gurruls.” 

“ Well, then it is a precious good thing I called you in, else 
I should never have seen you since you’re no hand for ‘ gur- 
ruls.’ ” She gave the word the same liquid sound as Danny 
had done, and then laughed. It was a very funny way her 
Cousin Danny had of talking. 

“ It’s hot in here, Danny. So hot that if I stay here one 
minute longer I shall be nothing but a grease spot.” 


DANNY 


61 


I hain’t niver said it was cool/’ responded Danny, mop- 
ping with his sleeve the great drops of sweat from his brow. 

‘‘No; you never said anything — much — to — me yet.” 

“ Oi hain’t niver been no hand fur talkin’ ! Oi don’t see no 
use ! ” 

“Then you’re not like me! I love to talk — when there s 
anyone to talk to. I talk too much sometimes. Miss Emery, 
one of the night nurses, used to say to me, ‘Time to turn off 
the gas.’ And I knew what she meant. But that was about all 
we could do. Every girl there had something the matter with 
her knees or her back. So talking was all that was left to us.” 

Hospitals did not appeal to Danny. 

“What was you a-callin’ me fur?” he asked. 

“Because I wanted you. I must get out into the air, 
Danny! I must go out there with you. You must carry me out.” 

He stepped back. 

“ There hain’t no bed out there,” he said. 

“Don’t I know that?” she laughed softly. “Did you think 
that I expected to find a nice, soft bed on top of every hill? 
It’s the bed I’m anxious to leave. You must carry me out, 
Danny.” 

“ Oi’m no hand fur carryin’ gurruls about.” 

“ Why, of course not. You never had any girls about here, 


G2 


DANNY 


whose knees were stif¥, else you would have learned all about it 
before now/’ She held out her arms. Danny slowly retreated. 

‘‘ The stones out there hain’t no soft place fur sittin’.” 

“ I shan’t sit on them. We’ll take out the pillows.” She 
seized one in her arms as she spoke and laughed. To Danny’s 
way of thinking, she was a great hand to laugh. 

‘‘ Oh, Cousin Danny, you simply cannot get rid of me. You 
must take me outside — to that beautiful outside. Please, 
Danny!” 

She held out her arms again. There was an attempt at a 
laugh in her voice, but the tears sprang to her eyes. 

Danny groaned and shuffled nearer. There might be a few 
worse things in the world than crying girls, but he had never 
seen them. 

“ If Oi must, Oi must,” he said. 

He shuffled nearer. Stooping, he suddenly picked her up in 
one arm and a pillow in the other, very much as he would have 
picked up a sack of flour. He moved toward the door at a 
much more rapid rate than he had entered, and, passing outside, 
deposited his burden in the first available bit of shade. 

‘'Oh, this is glorious!” cried Nora, tosing back her head 
and trying to drink in the pure air. “ Sit down, Danny. You 
must be tired carrying both me and the pillow.” 


DANNY 


63 


Danny’s first thought was to beat a retreat. He looked 
down at the bit of green near Nora’s pillow. He hesitated, then 
let his eyes rest upon the parched path with the sun beating 
down upon it. The tin roofs of the mills were aglow with heat. 
Escape meant a long, long walk in the sun. The thought itself 
was quite enough to weary Danny. The choice was desperate, 
but a second glance down the hill decided him. He sank down 
by her side, although he was ''no hand fur gurruls.” 

He leaned against the shanty, stretched out his long legs 
before him, and turning his head away from her, kept his 
eyes on the distant hills, and tried to forget that he was 
not alone. 

"Danny,” said Nora, "who is 111 Luck? Is she a person? 
Everyone who comes into Aunt Mary’s kitchen says something 
about her ! All those nice, fat Irish ladies, who come up The Hill, 

and don’t wear stockings, talk about her; but I have never seen 

her. Who is she? What an odd name to give anyone! Who 
is this 111 Luck, Cousin Danny?” 

Danny groaned. Now he was in trouble! He might have 
known how it would be if he talked with "gurruls.” They 

always did ask all sorts of queer questions, and were always 

expecting answers. 

"Who is 111 Luck, Cousin Danny? Does she live near here? 


G4 


DANNY 


Why is it I never see her when all the others speak of her so 
much? Who is 111 Luck?’’ the child repeated. 

Danny turned his head aside. He was dirty, slovenly, lazy, 
but he was truthful. Now he knew not what reply to make, 
for he could not tell her that it was she herself that they meant; 
that she was looked upon as the ill luck of the vShannons. He 
looked from the shanty to The Hill and then off to the sun-kissed 
tips of the distant spires and then back again. He could get no 
help from any of these. Perhaps she would forget after awhile 
and begin to talk of something else. It was the way girls had, 
he believed. 

Who is 111 Luck, Danny? Is it some one I am not to know 
about? ” 

111 Luck,’^ he began slowly, you was a-askin’ who she is. 
She’s a bit of a gurrul that’s livin’ hereabouts.” 

‘‘But why did they give her such a name? Is she a little 
witch? Does she make all sorts of trouble wherever she goes? 
Does she bring ill luck? I thought little girls brought good 
luck. That is what my father told me many and many a time! 
He says they always bring happiness wherever they go. Why 
did they ever give her such a name as that ? ” 

“ How should I be a-knowin’ ? Hain’t Oi told you that Oi 
hain’t no hand for gurruls?” 



“Who is 111 Luck, Danny?” 












DANNY 


65 


'‘Blit you have seen her! Is she a little girl, or as big as 
I am ? ’’ 

" Oi niver saw much of her, an’ Oi niver am much of a 
hand fur noticin’ folks.” 

He turned and gave a sidelong look at Nora as though to 
really see how big she was. 

"She may be about your size — if Oi’m remimberin’ roight.” 

Nora was not wholly deceived. She knew that for some 
reason Danny was not telling her all. That she was deceived 
because the subject was one of moment to her in particular did 
not enter her mind. But if for some reason she was not to 
know, she decided to let the matter drop, and turn her attention 
to the view before her. 

Near her was neither tree nor shrub. At the foot of The 
Hill stretched the red-painted tin roofs of the mills, throwing out 
the heat from their hot furnaces. From the smoke-stack whose 
mouth was on a level with the top of The Hill, there came at 
irregular intervals a volume of sulphur-laden smoke which killed 
every bud or leaf it touched. The pennyroyal alone seemed 
proof against it, and it survived only to be nibbled by the goats 
that browsed on the hillside. 

Nora permitted her eyes to rest but for a moment here. 
She looked beyond hill and factory and town to the distant 


5 


66 


DANNY 


mountains. Miles away, they raised their great heights to the 
clouds, a mass of every shade and tone of green that nature 
kept in stock. The maple and oaks with a spot of the lighter 
green of the dogwood, were bound together with the narrow 
velvety bands of evergreens that ran up and down the mountains 
like a band of narrow ribbon. 

‘^Are there brown-eyed Susans and daisies over there, near 
the mountains, Danny ? she asked suddenly. 

How could Oi be tellin’ ? Oi’m no hand fur flowers. Oi 
niver so much as saw thim what ye're talkin' about." 

‘‘They're beautiful, Danny ! The sweetest flowers you ever 
saw. When I had a mother she took me out in the fields and 
she would make pictures while I would gather flowers. Then 
we'd come home with our arms full. It was simply lovely ! " 
The child’s eyes were bright, and her face all aglow at the mere 
memory of it. “ This is the first summer that I never had all 
I wished. You don't know, Danny, how I've wished for them! 
And when I knew I could not have the really flowers, do you 
know what I did? " 

“ An' how should Oi be knowin' about gurruls, an' their 
queer ways?" 

“ I thought so much about them, and kept wishing and 
wishing for just one. I almost cried — I wished for just one 


DANNY 


67 


peep at them. But then I thought what good would crying do? 
So I shut my eyes and just made believe. I made believe my 
bed was a field covered with black-eyed Susans and daisies. It 
was so real a make-believe that when I opened my eyes I ex- 
pected to see them there. My making believe seemed so really.’’ 

They must be ghrand fur lookin’ at.” 

‘‘Grand! Well, I should say they are. You wouldn’t ask 
such a question, Danny Shannon, if you had ever seen them. 
Why, their eyes are so big” — she made a circle with her fingers 
— “ all a golden brown, and about the center are bright, yellow 
petals. They grow on long stems and keep bobbing their heads 
up and down, like this! Just as though they were saying 
‘ How-do ! How-do ! ’ ” 

“ Thim ! OiVe sain thim, but Oi niver looked much at thim ! ” 

“ Then they do grow about here, if you have seen them. 
Danny, is it far from here they grow ? Could you carry me 
there? ” 

“’Tis quite a stip — six miles an’ mebbe more!” 

“ Oh, so far ! ” She had hoped it was near enough so that 
Danny might carry her, or she would have crawled down The 
Hill on her hands, if need be, if only she could have seen them. 

The disappointment was great. She had hoped to see one 
summer flower. But she soon rallied all her forces. 


68 


DANNY 


Well, who knows,” she cried cheerily, ‘'but I may see one 
flower yet? Miss Morgan always goes into the country and if 
she sees any she will slip one into my letter. She will just 
naturally know that I want them. That's one of Miss Morgan's 
ways, that makes her different from other people. She always knows 
what you like, without you ever telling her anything about it.'' 

“An' who moight she be?'' 

“ Oh, Danny, you say the queerest things ! You would keep 
me laughing all the time. Who might she be? Well, she might 
be a great many people. She might be the Shah of Persia or 
old Mother Goose. She might be they, but she isn't. She is 
just Miss Morgan. She knew my father and mother, and she 
takes charge of the children in the hospital. Were you ever in 
a hospital, Danny?'' 

“Niver. Oi've niver been havin' inny use fur thim things.'' 

A picture of the hot, close shanty, where for weeks she had 
been lying alone, came at that moment to Nora, and the great, 
cool room of the hospital with its polished floors and softly-tinted 
walls grew beautiful by comparison. 

“ A hospital, Danny, is the most beautiful place in the 
world. It is always cool and clean. The nurses always have 
white dresses and soft voices. Hospitals are the most beautiful 
places in the world — that is if your body doesn't ache and Dr. 


DANNY 


69 


Bach doesn’t come every morning to twist and bend your knees! 
I cried more than once.” 

It’s a way, they tell me, that gurruls have — a-cryin’ out 
at iverything.” 

What would you do, Danny, if every time they tried to 
bend your knees, it would seem as though red-hot pokers were 
running up your back? What would you do?” 

‘‘ Oi’d up an’ give him one on the jaw! ” said Danny. ‘^Thin 
they'd laive me alone.” 

This was too much for Nora. She laughed aloud. 

“ Danny, you are as good as medicine. You keep me laugh- 
ing all the time. Wouldn’t that be a funny way to treat Dr. 
Bach, when he was trying his best to make me walk? But with 
all his trying, they would not limber one bit. So after a while, 
he stopped trying.” 

‘‘An’ will they ulwus be jist so — niver bendin’ a bit?” 

“ Perhaps, Danny, perhaps.” For a time she could not talk 
of the subject, but sat quiet. 

“ Perhaps, Danny ! Dr. Bach says I must grow plump and 
red-cheeked first and then I am to go back and he will cut 
one stiff muscle. Then I may be able to walk. But I must be 
strong first.” 

“ An’ whin will ye be a-goin’ ? ” 


70 


DANNY 


'' Oh, perhaps never. It takes a great deal of money to 
pay Dr. Bach. More than I shall ever have. I haven’t a cent, 
Danny. Not one cent.” 

'' So they be a-tellin' me,” said Danny. 

‘‘ I wish, Danny, you could hear Miss Morgan and Dr. 
Bach talk. One day when I cried when he hurt me, he turned 
around to Miss Morgan and said, ' We're very much like the 
child ourselves. Nurse. I have cried out when the Great Physician 
hurt me. I’m learning now He does it that He may make me well.’ ” 
“Who was the big doctor? Oi thought you was jist 
a-sayin’ he was the boss of the gang, hisself.” 

“ That was just his queer way of talking. He is the 
greatest surgeon in all the United States, and other doctors bring 
people to him to be helped. Miss Morgan used to say things 
just as queer. One day she read us a story about everyone 
having a great gift. I asked her what my gift was, and what 
do you think she did? Just touched my knees that wouldn’t 
bend and said, ' It might be this, Nora.’ Now, Danny, would 
you consider it a great gift to have knees that won’t bend ? ” 
Danny gave no answer. He had lost all interest in stiff 
joints, and the stories which Miss Morgan had told her. His 
entire attention was riveted on his bare toes, which he was 
reflectively digging into the sun-baked earth. 


DANNY 


71 


Had the heavily-fringed lashes been raised, and could Nora 
have seen the expression there, she would have thought Danny 
as odd and queer as either Dr. Bach or Miss Morgan. His 
eyes had the look of one who suddenly realized his own 
responsibility, and sees rise before him a great wall, seemingly 
unsurmountable. 

But the expression changed when he heard the whistling 
of the paper-mills. He turned toward Nora. 

“Now, jist suppose ye'd be a-wantin' to write to that man, 
a-tellin' him ye'd not be a-comin' back. Could ye be a-writin' 
his name out on paper loike this?" His hand went down into 
the pocket of his overalls, and came back filled with bits of 
tinted paper, the refuse of the mill. 

“Yes, indeed, I can write, Danny. I always got ‘E’on 
my report cards when I went to school, and Miss Morgan says 
she's able to read every word in the letters I wrote her." 

Danny picked up a smooth stone, took the dust from it by 
rubbing it over the leg of his overalls and handed it to Nora. 
It served its purpose as a desk while she laboriously wrote in 
her vertical writing. 

Dr. Hans Frederick Bach, 

No. — Fifth Ave., 


New York. 


72 


DANNY 


Then she held it out for Danny’s inspection. ‘‘ There ! Don’t 
you think I write well? Can you write like that?” 

Oi’ve niver been no hand fur writin’. There won’t niver 
be no call for me a-knowin’ about it.” 

Nora let the paper drop at her side, and taking the stone 
in her hand tried to roll it down the hill. While she was inter- 
ested in this, Danny picked up the scrap with the address, and 
stuck it in his pocket. Then he turned suddenly. 

Oi’ll be takin’ ye in ! ” Before she realized what he was 
doing, he had picked her up and started for the shanty. 


X 


CHAPTER VII 


Where’s The Boss?” 

NE sultry morning, as the men were unloading in the 
mill yard a car filled with logs which were to be con- 
verted into paper, an unkempt figure of a boy came 
around the corner of the buildings. He was dressed in an 
undershirt, and a pair of blue overalls, kept in place by one 
suspender. His head was bent forward. His eyes were fixed 

on the ground. He stopped every few feet to reflectively dip 
his toes into the water which, having escaped from the pipes, 
ran in little rills across the yard. 

Plello, Rip,” cried one of the men, ‘‘ When did you get 
awake? ” 

Danny, for it was he, raised his long-fringed lashes and 
looked at the man. He had no idea what the man meant by 
such a question. He had never heard of Rip Van Winkle; but 
by some indirect method of reasoning, he knew that Rip,” 
somehow referred to himself. He made no answer to the ques- 
tion save to meet it with one of his own. 



( 73 ) 



74 


DANNY 


‘‘Where’s the boss?” 

“ The boss, Danny, my boy, is at this moment sitting in 
his New York office, cutting off coupons.” 

“ Coupons,” was as much Greek to Danny as “ Rip ” had 
been. He understood however, that the “ boss ” was absent. 
Turning away, his head drooping low on his chest, his eyes on 
the ground, he walked to the gate. Then he turned again and 
came slowly back. 

“Say! An’ where’s the feller that gives ye ye'r jobs an’ 
pays ye ye’r money?” 

“ Oh, that’s a horse of a different color. Why didn’t you 
say so at first? He cuts checks in place of coupons.” 

The men laughed. They saw the point of the man’s re- 
marks. They had felt the effects of the cutting. Danny saw 
nothing to laugh at. 

“ Stop guying the boy,” said a second man. “ It's the 
superintendent you want, Danny. You’ll find him up there.” He 
nodded his head and jerked his thumb in the direction of the 
buildings. “ Ask for the superintendent's office.” 

Danny turning in the direction indicated, walked off and 
made his way through broad halls and stairs of polished wood 
to the door marked “ office.” 

Danny, to whom the social customs had been as a closed 


DANNY 


75 


book, put his hand upon the knob, swung open the door, and 
entered. 

The room reflected his image as a mirror would have re- 
flected it. The dark floors were polished to their highest, and 
the heavy wainscoting gleamed and glistened with every ray of 
light, while the massive furniture was not outdone by floors or 
walls. A library table filled up the center of the room, and 
here, with a gold pen poised in his hand, a man was seated. 

He was the sole occupant of the room, and had the figure, 
dress and manner of one who was more than prosperous. His 
heavy brows were drawn down over a pair of clear, penetrating 
eyes, that seemed to see and pass judgment upon everything 
that came in their way. A pair of eye-glasses, fastened to a 
fine gold chain, hung from the lapel of his coat. He moved 
as though he had brought himself and his actions into keeping 
with the massive elegance of the room. 

At Danny's unannounced entrance, he raised his glasses, 
placed them, not astride their legitimate place on his nose, but 
a few inches before his eyes, and held them there ; while he 
peered over them and through them, all the while drawing down 
his brows and looking quite stern, in a way that had often 
caused stouter hearts than Danny's to palpitate. 

But Danny did not give place to fear. He had an idea. 


7G 


DANNY 


and when an idea took its place in his brain, it was not readily 
displaced by another. So he stood in the man’s presence, peered 
at through the eye-glasses attached to a gold chain, and scruti- 
nized from head to foot, yet he trembled not, nor showed 
embarrassment or fear. 

Oi’m a-wantin’ a job.’" 

The eye-glasses for one moment had dropped, and swung 
by their chain. But they went up again, perhaps to see if this 
thing could really be true — this unkempt, dirty boy, standing 
unembarrassed in his presence, and boldly asking for a place in 
the mills. For several moments. Superintendent Thomas peered 
through the glasses. Then he replied, in tones quiet, massive, 
decided, slow — quite in keeping with the room : 

''I fancy you — shall — continue — to — ziwit. Let — me — 
see.” The glasses were raised again — ‘‘Ah — what did you say 
your name was?” 

“ Me name’s Shannon ! Danny Shannon. Oi live on The 
Hill.” 

“Ah!” 

That “ah ! ” from the superintendent’s lips spoke volumes. 
It showed that the books of revelations concerning Danny and 
Danny’s reputation lay open before him. The eye-glasses fell. 
The office chair slowly revolved. Danny had an excellent view 


DANNY 


77 


of the broad shoulders of the man. The superintendent of the 
paper-mills picked up some papers and fixed his attention upon 
them. 

Be kind enough to close the door as you go out/' was all 
he said. 

But even Danny understood that. If his sensitive nature 
had been touched, he gave no sign. Quitting the office, he made 
his way back to The Hill, stopping only to adjust his lone sus- 
pender and prevent it falling too far over his shoulder, and no 
one knew whether Danny was hurt or not. 

Nora had been looking forward to the afternoon. She was 
quite confident that now, since Danny knew how unbearably hot 
the shanty was, and how she loved to be outside, he would come 
as a matter of course, and carry her out into the shade. 

But she had made her reckoning without considering two 
important factors : Danny’s natural antipathy for work, and his 
“ niver bein’ no hand for gurruls.” 

The rays of the afternoon sun had moved across the floor, 
and lay in long oblique lines across the bed. The afternoon was 
passing; but brought with it no Danny. Nora could bear the 
heat no longer. She was sure she heard him moving about out- 
side. 

Then she did just as she had done the evening before — 


78 


DANNY 


crawled to the edge of the bed nearest the wall and pounded 
against the boards. 

She did not find it necessary to pound so long now, for 
Danny had already learned that she would continue until he 
came. Ungraciously, perhaps, he came, and without waiting for 
her to insist, picked her up and carried her into the shade. 

Nora had been so much alone that she was rich in devices 
for entertainment. Her little head was filled with bits of poems, 
fables and history-stories, and best of all, she never doubted that 
others enjoyed them quite as much as she did, and so she 
repeated to Danny what she had learned. 

She told him again of that most beautiful place in the 
world — the hospital, and the stories Miss Morgan had told her 
there. 

She passed them on to Danny a little better than new, for 
she put into them a little of herself, her happy childishness, 
which contact with the world had taken from Miss ^lorgan. 

Then she played school. She herself was teacher and Danny 
pupil. He was every class from a primary^ to a high school. 
Somehow the play drifted into what Nora called ‘Hhe really.’' 
A reader had been found somewhere about the shant}\ WTiere. 
Nora did not know or seek to discover. It was quite enough 
to know that it was there. The class of one read laboriously. 


DANNY 


79 


The writing-class clenched his fingers upon his stubby pencil and 
copied scraps of paper full of words. 

The class maintained the same stolid demeanor, whether 
the teacher reprimanded or eulogized. It seemed to affect the 
class not one whit, whether the teacher with well-assumed dignity 
said, Danny Shannon may remain at recess to study his read- 
ing,’’ or whether with charming graciousness she said, Danny 
Shannon has handed in the best-prepared paper to-day.” 

It may not have been that ambition had found a place in 
Danny’s soul. He always remembered that the pennyroyal- 
bordered path down The Hill was hot, and only the hot, noisy 
mills at the end — while here, close by, was a patch of green 
and shade, and a breeze from the river. 

Mary Shannon, coming around the edge of the lean-to, saw 
the two talking together and her heart grew light. In an in- 
stant she saw all manner of pleasant things to come from this. 

She went back to her work, and rubbed and sang for very 
joy, and her voice rang down to the foot of The Hill. But 
alas for the mother’s hopes! Her flight of fancy had been too 
high and too sudden. 

Danny listened all the afternoon to Nora’s stories. When 
the sun grew low he picked her up in his arms and started for 
the shanty. 


80 


DANNY 


‘‘ Do look, Danny,” she cried, at the beautiful horses at 
the foot of The Hill.” 

Danny looked. The superintendent of the paper-mills, sitting 
upright and pompous in his carriage drawn by beautifully- 
matched horses, was at the foot of The Hill, bowling slowly along 
and looking about him. 

As Danny looked down, the superintendent raised his eye- 
glasses, and, looking straight up The Hill, recognized the boy, 
and wondered at the burden in his arms. 

The carriage rolled on, the superintendent sitting stiff and 
pompous as before, but who knows whether in his heart there 
came a change of feeling for the boy who could so tenderly 
carry in his arms a helpless little child? 

Danny deposited his load on the bed, and then went off down 
The Hill. The supper hour came, but brought with it no Danny. 

In the late twilight, Mary Shannon sat in the doorway with 
Nora in her arms. Her eyes were fixed on the fading pathway, 
but Danny came not to reward her watching. 

Twilight became moonlight and the moonlight was hours 
old before Mary Shannon carried Nora to her bed, yet Danny 
had not come home. Never before had he been so late as this. 

Nora lay awake until the clock in the town below struck 
two. All the while she was awake and alert, listening for 
Danny’s coming. At last, tired out, she fell asleep. 


CHAPTER VIII 


A Mishap at the Mill 

HE Shannon mansion was not alone in its trouble. The 
mill had trials of its own. At ten o’clock that night 
the third tower had taken up its work. 

The workmen on the second tower had filled the digestors 
with wood, cut to Saratoga-chips fineness, and over it all had 
poured a liquid compound of water, soda, lime and potash; then 
turning the gas on had allowed the great mass to boil. Then 
the third tower came, with Beck in charge of the digestors. 

The night was hot. The man had slept little during the 
day, and none at all the night before. He turned on a fuller 
head of gas and, lying down beside the great caldrons, dozed ofif, 
waking at frequent intervals to look at the thermometers and 
keep the digestors at a steady boil. But the naps gradually grew 
longer, until he fell into a sound slumber. 

He awakened with a cry, and quick as a flash was upon his 

feet. 

The boiling mass of pulp had bubbled over, covering the 

( 81 ) 



6 


82 


DANNY 


floor about the sleeping man, and in an instant burning his 
flesh. 

The men in the rooms below understood the cry. They had 
heard it too often not to interpret it correctly. Quick as it 
reached their ears, a workman turned the gas low, while others 
hurried to the digesting room and carried the man, writhing in 
agony, into the office. 

Some one hurried for a doctor. The others went back to 
their work. But the disability of the man who understood the 
mixing of the liquids and the proper proportion of chemicals for 
the digestors kept the others from their work. The chopping- 
machines which sliced the wood into wafers, and the great 
presses which rolled, and pressed, and polished the pulp into 
paper, might continue, but all through the digesting department 
the work stopped. 

The superintendent came, and with his eye-glasses held be- 
fore his eyes calmly listened to the foreman’s story of the 

trouble. Then he let the glasses swing by their chain and said 

slowly — ‘‘Ah, yes, move up the men step by step. Get an 

extra boy to run the choppers. Beck may call at the office for 
his time when he is able.” 

The superintendent was not hasty. He showed no annoy- 
ance. His dress was as fastidious as though he had spent 


DANNY 


83 


hours upon it, in place of being called from his bed in 
a hurry, and he raised and lowered his eye-glasses with dainty 
precision. 

There was not a man present who dared defend Beck. 
They listened, and then went to obey the commands. Any 
words, they knew, in Beck’s behalf would be useless. The 
men were moved up one by one. The cutting machine for 
that night was left without a boy to feed it. 

The following morning, Mary Shannon rose earlier than 
usual. She had not slept, for her mind had been fearful for 
Danny. She cleared the ashes from the stove and set about 
preparing the best breakfast the shanty could afford. 

There were boiled potatoes, bursting from their jackets in 
their eagerness to be devoured; slices of bacon turning up their 
edges with appetizing crispness; a pot of strong coffee and a 
cup of cream, skimmed from the goat’s milk. 

Her heart was heavy as she moved about. Danny had fal- 
len into evil ways and she was helpless to draw him back. 
It was not her way to speak against her own, or annoy the 
boy with constant chidings. She would do the better part. 
She would make the shanty as much a home as she could. He 
should find his meals waiting for him when he came, and no 
harsh word of greeting. He should know that a mother’s heart 


>4 


DANNY 


is always tender toward her own, and a mother's hand ready for 
service. 

It was early morning when he came, not by the way of 
the lean-to, as had been his habit but through Nora's room into 
the kitchen. 

He walked as though he was tired to death. He dragged 
himself to a chair and sat down, letting his arms rest on the 
table and his head fall upon his arms. His eyes were bloodshot 
and hea\y, as though he had had no sleep. 

Mar)' Shannon filled up his plate and put it before him. 
She laid a motherly hand upon his bowed head as she addressed 
him, ‘‘There, Danny, me bhoy, be aitin’ a bit. There’s bacon, 
an’ taters — with their jackets on — coffee sthrong enough to be 
a floatin’ an egg, an’ a bit of crame. Oi've been a-savin’ it 
fur yerself, me lad.” 

He raised his head. Dear to his palate had the cream 
from the goat’s milk ever been. It was that upon which his 
first glance fell. He pushed it from him. 

“It's little use Oi’m havin’ for cream. Ye'd betther be a 
savin’ it fur her. She's but a bit of a gurrul.” 

Surely, the days of miracles had not passed! He who had 
been spending the night as a rowdy or law breaker, now sacrific- 
ing himself like a god. 


DANNY 


85 


It was all he said. He began upon the bacon and potatoes 
and cleared the table. 

The mother stood by, serving his plate and refilling his 
cup, until he had finished. Then she spoke: 

‘‘ Danny, dear heart, it’s not yer mither’s way to be fault- 
finding an’ scolding, the minute ye step inside the door. But 
her heart’s been growin’ hivvy fur minny an’ minny a day, me 
bhoy. She’s laid awake at night askin’ herself the question 
agin an’ agin, ‘ an’ where’s Danny Shannon this noight ? ’ An’ 
she’s prayed to the Blessed Virgin to sind ye back to her. The 
Blessed Virgin has a mither’s heart, me bhoy, an’ it’s a riddy 
ear she has for thim whose hearts are hivvy fur their lad’s 
sake. 

‘‘ It’s yer mither’s heart that’s been heavy, this noight, dear 
heart. There’s thim in the town who’ll spake ye fair an’ talk 
smooth, an’ lade you along, but it’s only yer mither that waits 
fur ye, an’ whose heart is hivvy whin ye’re goin’ wrong. 

‘‘ Oi’ll not be askin’ where ye’ve been, me bhoy, an’ Oi’ll 
not be askin’ ye to be a stayin’ home at noight. But Oi’m 
wantin’ ye to know it’s yer mither that’s a thinkin’ of ye ivery 
minnit ye’r away, an’ it’s yer mither’s prayers that’ll follow ye 
roight along, go where ye will.” 

Danny’s head was down on the table. He made no attempt 


86 


DANNY 


to answer. His mother refilled his cup with coffee, and softly 
laid her hand upon the unkempt head. She could say no more. 

Suddenly a cry came from Nora's room. 

‘‘ It’s ill luck. Something has happened,” cried Mrs. Shan- 
non, setting down the .coffee-pot and hurrying away. 

Danny did not move, but sat with his head bowed. Bein’ 
no hand fer gurruls,” he concerned himself not at all about what 
had caused his cousin to cry out so. 

Mrs. Shannon flung open the door and then paused. Nora, 
swinging her body backward and forward in an excess of feel- 
ing, sat straight up in bed. Her arms were filled with black- 
eyed Susans. Yellow-centered daisies with petals of white cov- 
ered the bed. 

''They’re really — really — really!” The child kept repeat- 
ing the words to herself and hugging the flowers close in her 
arms, as though it were a child she held, pressing her soft 
cheeks down upon them and touching their brown eyes with her 
lips. 

" See, Auntie, see ! They are really, really. They are no 
make-believe. Every day I have prayed to see just one flower 
and now — all these! Look at them. Aunt Mary. I knew I 
should get some, when I prayed for them, but I never hoped 
for so many.” 


DANNY 


87 


Mrs. Shannon rose to the occasion. 

“ The saints be praised ! The days of miracles hain't 
passed. To think they sprung up roight in the middle of yer 
bed! The saints — ’’ 

Oh, saints, nothing ! They had nothing at all to do with 
it. It was our Danny. He’s been gone all night for these. He 
started for them just the moment he knew how badly I needed them.” 

Mrs. Shannon sat down on the edge of the bed, and heaved 
a sigh of supreme content. 

He’s one ghrand bhoy, though Oi hain’t the one to be 
a-sayin’ it. Och, Colleen, did ye iver say such eyes? Just 
loike the Medonnies in the churches. An’ gintle! There hain’t 
a bhoy on The Hill that has as big a heart in him as our 
Danny.” 

Nora swayed back and forth, hugging and kissing her flow- 
ers, and murmuring to herself “They’re really — really — really!” 

“ Where is oiir Danny, Aunt Mary ? Will you call him 
in? I must thank him for these sweet flowers.” 

Mary Shannon obeyed as quickly as her avoirdupois per- 
mitted. But Danny in the kitchen had heard the request. 
“ Being no hand fur gurruls,” he was in no need of thanks 
from them. When Mrs. Shannon entered the kitchen, Danny 
was in the lean-to, to all appearances fast asleep. 


88 


DANNY 


Both his waking thoughts and dreams bore the burden of 
pleasant fancies and suggestions. 

'' Our Danny.’’ 

He knew not the reason for it but the words lingered in 
his mind. Like silken chains they drew him into the circle of 
human love and sympathy. Hereafter he was bound to the 
little helpless cousin, and his work was to serve. He fell 
asleep in thinking of her words, our Danny,” and they repeated 
themselves in his dreams. 


CHAPTER IX 


Shadows of Trouble 

LL day long Mary Shannon sang over her work and 
Nora sat content with her flowers. When afternoon 
came, Danny shambled in without her importuning and 
her to the shade. 

Nora was in the mood to chatter. She was happier than 
she had been since she came to The Hill. She had grieved in 
secret to know that Danny was bringing sorrow and perhaps 
shame to his mother. She had watched her aunt's face from 
day to day and had not failed to see the lines grow deeper, and 
the troubled look linger in her eyes. 

But those times had passed. Danny was about to do all 
that was expected of a boy. Her Aunt Mary was to be happy 
and to sing all day long at her work. The shanty on Goat 
Hill was to be the happiest place about. 

Nora had arranged the whole affair in her own mind, and 
had prayed about it with zealous devotion. That decided the 

(89) 


A 



carried 


90 


DANNY 


matter for her. She had prayed for a glimpse of the flowers, 
and her prayers had been answered; so it followed, as a matter 
of course, that this prayer would be answered, too. 

When supper was eaten, Danny went down The Hill, and did 
not come back until daylight. There were no flowers to tell 
the reason for his absence, nor did he attempt an explanation. 
That was not Danny’s way. He was awkward in the use of 
words, so he let them alone as far as he was able. 

He lay asleep in the lean-to all the morning. In the afternoon, 
he again carried 111 Luck outside, and in a sleepy sort of way 
played school. 

Nora wished to speak to him concerning his being from 
home at nights, but was afraid. She had never liked people 
preaching to her, and she wisely concluded that Danny might 

like it no better. So she made no mention of the matter and 

tried to put it from her thoughts, but it bobbed up every few 
minutes, very much like a fish-line float on a placid stream. 

Several weeks slipped along in the same way. Each morn- 
ing Danny slept. Each afternoon, if the day was fair, he sat 
on The Hill with 111 Luck, but as sure as twilight came, he 
shambled off down the pennyroyal-bordered path, raising his 

feet high to prevent stubbing his toes, and adjusting his one 

suspender as he moved along. 


DANNY 


01 


Mary Shannon kept a brave heart within her. Never one 
word she spoke to Nora concerning Danny. However down- 
cast her expression over the wash-tub, when she went to speak 
to the child she mustered up all her courage and brought a 
smiling face into the room. When she heard a bit of news 
from below, she straightway made it known to Nora, and 
laughed heartily as she talked. There was never a wedding, or 
fire, or fair, but what Nora was told all about, and told in a 
way to make her believe that that subject alone lay closest to 
Mary Shannon’s heart. 

But that little corner where lay her own troubles and 
Danny’s shame she never brought to light. Yet without words, 
both child and woman understood. Each felt confident of the 
other’s unspoken sympathy. 

Nora laughed at all the news her aunt brought to her. If 
by chance, Danny’s name slipped into the conversation, she grew 
quite eloquent on the way he was learning to read. 

He writes his name quite well. Aunt Mary. I never saw 
a boy more careful ! There was never anyone, not even at the 
hospital, who carried me about so carefully.” 

She smiled up at Mrs. Shannon, and Mrs. Shannon smiled 
back, and each pretended to the other that she was quite 
deceived. 


02 


DANNY 


June, July and August passed. Every night for the last 
two months Danny had been away. 

One morning Mona Friel carried a bit of news to the top 
of The Hill. Bid Murphy had heard it first, but not for the 
Avorld would she have mentioned it to Mary Shannon. It was 
not Bid Murphy’s way to be carrying evil news. But Mona 
was different. She had ever been a carrion bird. So it was 
she who came up The Hill and into Mary Shannon’s kitchen. 
Ill Luck, from the bed-room, heard bits of talk as Mona, in her 
excitement, let her voice run high. 

‘‘ They’re a-tellin' me it’s been a-goin’ on fur months. Oi’m 
glad, Mary Shannon, that me bhoys was all a-born gurruls. 
Gurruls hain’t hands fur aimin’ big money, but nayther are they 
a bringin’ shame an^ disgrace to their folks. Me head would 
be bint in shame if Oi was mither to a boy this day, Mary 
Shannon.” 

Mary Shannon made no answer; but she rubbed the sheet 
in her hands with unusual vigor. She longed to know all that 
]\Iona Friel had heard, yet pride and fear kept her from asking 
questions. Mona, she knew, was quick to see and understand. 
]\Iary Shannon turned her back, keeping her face out of range 
of Mona’s clear eyes, and pretending absorption in her 
starching. 


DANNY 


93 


It's been a-goin' on fur months, they tell me," continued 
Mona. ‘‘Stalin' a bit here, an' pickin' up a bit there, an' hidin' 
it away in a barrun; a-smokin' an' a-drinkin' an' a-stayin' out 
noights. But they're afther thim, Mary Shannon. It's pinitin- 
shery they tell me. Oi'd be a-worrin' about that bhoy, Danny, 
Mary Shannon." 

Mary Shannon wrung out a sheet — wrung with such 
energy that the muscles of her arms stood out in great welts. 

“ Oi'll take care of me own. If Oi'm nadin' hilp, Oi'll be 
askin' fur it. If it's worry ye're afther, think of the ould 
man's dinner. It's little he'll be a-gettin' this day, Oi'm 
a-thinkin'." 

Nora heard and feared for Danny. She turned her face to 
the wall, and struggled to keep back the tears. Her heart 
ached for her Aunt Mary. 

She made up her mind that when afternoon came she 
would speak to Danny. All the morning she planned what she 
would say, and how she would say it, that she might not hurt 
his feelings. Every unusual or unexpected sound — a foot-step 
outside, the creaking of a door — startled her. Perhaps an 
officer was coming for Danny! 

“ Danny," she began gently, when in the afternoon they 
were seated together on The Hill, “ Danny, do you know that 


94 


DANNY 


your mother and I have worried a great deal about you, this 
summer? We can see no reason for your being away all night. 
So we keep thinking, and worrying, until we are almost ill.'’ 

“An' thin why don't ye stop?" asked Danny. 

“ But we cannot help thinking of you. You are all your 
mother has. You are the only man left to us, Danny. If 
anything wrong should be done by you, it would kill your 
mother or break her heart." 

She leaned forward and touched his great dirty hand. “ Oh, 
Danny, won't you promise me to stay here with us at night?" 

Danny took no time for consideration or debate. His mind 
was quite made up. 

“ Oi hain't a-makin' no promises. Hain't yur goin' to read 
a bit?" 

Nora took up the book. They had read and re-read it, 
but the stories possessed the charm of perpetual freshness. She 
slowly turned the leaves. She was in no mood to read. 

Suddenly Danny gave a start. Nora whose nerves were 
all a-quiver, dropped the book. Danny gave a hurried glance 
down The Hill, and then turned his head aside. 

Nora let her glance follow his. A man in uniform was 
making his way up The Hill, as though his objective point was 
the Shannon cottage. 


DANNY 


95 


He's bringin' a letther," said Danny. 

Nora gave a gasp of relief. In her excitement, she had 
mistaken him for a police-officer. 

‘‘Why doesn't he hurry?" she cried. “It must be a letter 
from Miss Morgan. She is the only one who writes to 
me." 

All through the long, hot summer, letters had come from 
Miss Morgan, in which she told of her journeys, and the beauti- 
ful places she had seen, sending all the sunshine she was able 
to the little shut-in on The Hill. 

Miss Morgan had never written about stiff knees or aching 
backs. Her letters were always an inspiration to be above the 
hurts that may come. Nora, after reading them, forgot for a 
long time that she was a helpless little body; but she felt like a 
giant of strength to whom all things are possible. 

She had written long letters to Miss Morgan, but they had 
never been mailed, for Nora never had a cent for postage. I 
wonder if Miss Morgan did not understand. She never waited 
for a reply, but continued to write the same helpful letters. 
She must have known. She was one of the rare spirits who 
understand. 

Danny proved a true prophet. The letter was for Nora. 

Her hand trembled as she signed her name to the receipt. It 


00 


D A N N Y 


must be from Miss Morgan — but why a special delivery? Did 
it mean to tell her that Miss Morgan was on her way back to 
the city and would stop to visit Goat Hill? 

She examined the address. It was not Miss Morgan’s 
writing. 

Her heart beat like a steam-hammer, as she tore open the 
envelope. The letter was short — very short — barely a half 
page, and dated from New York. 

My dear Miss Nora,” it ran, Miss Morgan returns to 
the hospital in two weeks. We shall expect you here at the 
same time, that you may be under her care. I have been think- 
ing a great deal about you, and have been annoyed with myself 
when I think that I allowed two little stiff cords to conquer me. 
You must come back and allow me to save my reputation as a 
surgeon. It will be a great favor to me, and you shall be 
able to walk. An even bargain, I think, so we shall not men- 
tion the word ‘ fee.’ 

‘‘ I think your Cousin Danny must be an exceedingly fine 
boy. I hope I shall some day meet him.” 

The letter bore the signature of the famous Dr. Bach. 

‘‘Why, Danny, how does Dr. Bach know of you?” 

Danny for a moment reflectively dug his toes into the soil. 

“Ah, Colleen,” — with a sidewise gesture of his hand as 


DANNY 


97 


though to dismiss the subject — ''Us min are bound to be 
a-hearin’ about one anither.’’ 

Nora's eyes wandered to the distant hills. No one could 
tell the joy this brought to her! To be able to walk! To run 
about! Her eyes filled with the very joy of it. For several 
moments she could not trust herself with words. They stuck 
in her throat, and became all tangled up, until she was quite 
ready to choke over them. 

Then she turned toward Danny, and stretched out her arms 
with an impetuous gesture, " Oh, Danny, Danny, it seems too 
good to be really. But it’s really — really — really.” 

Danny slowly drew himself away from the touch of her 
soft, fragile hand — "being no hand for gurruls.” Perhaps, for 
the same reason he made no effort to reply. 

Then her hands fell slowly back into her lap. She gave a 
little cry of sorrow. 

" Oh, Danny, it cannot be really after all. There’s other 
things besides paying Dr. Bach. There’s many, many things. 
It can never, never be.” 

She was glad then that Danny did not look at her. But 
although he must have heard her sobs, he gave no sign but 
looked straight before him, like a wooden tobacco-sign man. 

Perhaps in all her life she would not be able to walk. She 


7 


98 


DANNY 


might live to be an old, old lady, and never take one step alone. 
She would never be able to plant flowers, or walk alone to the 
woods — only day after day to sit, as she sat day after day, 
depending on some one else for all she had. She had tried to 
be patient, and had been hopeful, but now thoughts of the long, 
helpless years that were coming mastered her. She pressed her 
lips together and kept her eyes on the hills. She tried to hum 
a little, but it was a dismal failure and ended in a sob. 

'‘An’ whin will ye be goin’?” said Danny. 

" Going ? Why — perhaps — Oh, Danny, never — not at all. 
There’s more money needed than to pay Dr. Bach. I must 
have new wrappers, and car fare, and my bed at the hospital. 
They all mean money, and Danny, I haven’t a cent — not a 
penny of my own. So it can't be really after all.” 

She looked up to laugh, but cried instead. 

Tears were like girls. That was all Danny ever expected 
of them ! They were always a trouble, he had been told. But 
with the spirit of a philosopher, he soon rid himself of his 
trouble by picking Nora up suddenly and carrying her into the 
shanty. 

She was sobbing aloud. He turned to leave the room when 
she stopped him. 

"Danny, will you promise me — please promise me — that 


DANNY 


99 


you will not go away tonight! Please stay home just one night, 
Danny ! ” 

“ Oi’ve niver been no hand fur promises. Oi think Oi’ll go 
down a bit.” 

Nora turned her face to the wall. Danny shambled off. 


CHAPTER X 


Danny’s Good Work 


‘‘Och, Mavoumeen, me darlint. 

Me colleen-bawn is she. 

The beauty of Killamey, 

Has sailed this side the say. 

An’ though she’s crossed th’ ocean 
An’ lift the isle o’ grane, 

She’s brought its beauty with her, 

Colleen, — Col-l-e-en — Col-l-e-en.” 

T WAS the song that awoke Nora early next morning. 
Surely some great good fortune had come to the Shan- 
nons, for never before had Mary Shannon sung with 
such a joyous spirit as this. 

Nora heard her stop in her singing to speak to Danny. 
Her voice was too low to permit Nora to catch the full mean- 
ing of her words. But there were frequent uses of “ dear 
heart,’’ and “ Colleen.” 

Nora was wide awake now, and lay wondering what had 
happened. Mrs. Shannon’s step, as she moved about the 
kitchen, was the step of one whose heart was light. 

(100) 



DANNY 


101 


It was a long time before the door opened and Mrs. Shan- 
non sailed in. The assumed cheerfulness of the days before 
had gone. Now there was no pretense in the smiling face. 
She seemed inches taller by her proud manner of raising her 
head. She was wearing the best of her thray ’’ best wrap- 
pers. As she entered the room, she was the smiling personifica- 
tion of pride and keeper of secrets. The tray she carried in 
her hand seemed larger and more heavily laden. 

It’s a bit of brickfast, Oi’m bringin’ ye, Colleen. No 
bacon this day, but a pace of steak that’s grand — juicy-like an’ 
aisy fur cuttin’. A bit of bhread an’ bhutter that milts in yer 
mouth at the soight of it. Cofifee that’s a quarther Mocha, an’ 
a quarther Java, an’ a quarther Reo — all mixed an’ fit fur the 
judge himself. Oi’ll wipe off yer mouth an’ hands a bit. 
Thin fall to aitin’, Colleen, before it’s gettin’ cold.” 

Nora’s eyes beamed with delight. It was a “ foine brick- 
fast,” as her Aunt Mary declared. 

It is lovely. Aunt Mary. But there is too much for me 
alone. Have you had your breakfast? There is plenty here 
for both. Can’t you eat with me?” 

‘‘Me — ate — now?” Mary Shannon turned her head aside 
in disgust. “ Hain’t Oi been a-aitin’ — fastin’ loike the judge, 
hisself, an’ niver layin’ out a cint of me own money! There’s 


102 


DANNY 


lots in this wurruld to be thankful fur, Colleen. There’s dark 
days to be shure, but the sunshine's bound to come if we wur- 
ruk on, patient loike, till the Lord's willin'. Oi've been a hard- 
hearted, grumblin’ ould Irish woman — ” 

‘‘ Oh, no. Aunt Mary ; why, your heart’s great big and soft ; 
don’t I know?” 

Och, Colleen, ye niver knew the hard, bitther thoughts 
Oi've been havin’. Oi’ve been a-tryin’ to harden me heart 
against thim what the saints sint roight into me house fur a 
blissing. 

All the while, Colleen, Oi was a-hardnin’ me heart, an’ 
thinkin’ the Lord didn’t know what was best for Mary Shan- 
non, an’ all the while He was doing grand by her. 

‘‘Ye know, Colleen, Oi'm nithing but a ignorant ould Irish- 
woman, who hain’t sinse enough to know that the saints have 
minny ways fur blessin’ folks. Afther this, Colleen, Mary 
Shannon will kape to her tubs, washin’ an’ singin’ a bit an’ 
failin’ all the whoile, that the Lord’s got sinse enough to attend 
to the rist of the affair. She won’t be askin’ why, an’ sayin’ 
the throuble’s more than she kin bear. Mary Shannon’s learned 
one lisson this day, Colleen.” 

Although Nora was hungry, and the breakfast tempting, it 
sat on the tray untasted until the flow of words had ceased. 


DANNY 


103 


'‘There, Colleen, be aitinb Niver a wurrud shall Oi be 
sayin’ till there hain’t a scrap lift on the plate/' 

She folded her hands across her abdomen, put her lips to- 
gether, and sat silent, although with the air of one who was 
repressing secrets, until Nora disposed of the breakfast. 

Then Mrs. Shannon, with the manner of one who carried 
weighty secrets of state, bore the tray aloft. 

The air of happy mystery affected Nora. Her brain was 
all a-tiptoe with excitement. She kept her eyes upon the door, 
and her ears keen to hear the slightest sound from the kitchen. 

There was a confused murmur of Mrs. Shannon's voice, 
reduced to a whisper, mingled with Danny's slow and heavy 
tones. It seemed ages to Nora while they whispered and talked 
in secret. 

At last the critical moment came. 

Mary Shannon was heard approaching the room door. 

" Close up yur peepers, one minute, Colleen, an' kape them 
toight until Oi say the wurrud. It’s a ghrand saykret we're 
a-havin'." 

Nora shut her eyes so tight that her face was all in funny 
little wrinkles. There was not even the suspicion of a peep about 
it. " They're closed. Aunt Mary, closed tight. I can't see a 
bit of light." 


104 


DANNY 


'' Kape thim so until Oi give the wurrud.” 

Nora heard the door being opened, and her aunt approach 
the bed. Then she felt her hand forced open, something placed 
in it, and the fingers forced tight about that something. 

‘‘ Now, dear heart, Oi'm afther sayin’ the wurrud.’’ 

Nora opened her eyes and hand. In her palm lay a roll 
of bills — quite a fortune, it seemed to her. She looked steadily 
at the roll for a moment. She could not grasp the meaning of it. 

‘‘All fur )^ersilf, Colleen. Danny” — and here Mrs. Shan- 
non’s eyes grew bright and her expansive bosom heaved with 
pride. — “ Danny’s been a-wurrukin’ fur months in the mills 
— wurrukin’ at noight, Colleen, an’ a-savin’ ivery pinny fur yer 
own swate silf. An’ yer to go sthraight ofif to New Yorruk, 
an’ come back with yer knaes sthraight, Colleen.” 

Nora tightly clasped the money but said never a word. 

“ Hain’t yer glad, Colleen ? Danny’s been countin’ on it 
makin’ yer glad.” 

Nora raised her eyes. They were filled with unshed tears. 

“ Glad ! Happy ! I am so happy that it hurts me — 
hurts me here.” She pressed her hands close to her heart. 

Another June has come to Goat Hill. The sun is beating 
down upon the pennyroyal-bordered paths, and the same goats 



“I am so happy that it hurts me — hurts me here.” 





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DANNY 


105 


are quietly nibbling the bit of green which has been energetic 
enough to force its way between the stones. A southern breeze 
is playing about, and peeping into all the corners of the Shan- 
non shanty. The doors are ajar, and the windows open. The 
place is empty, for the Shannons have moved out. 

Mrs. Murphy and her family are moving in. She is stand- 
ing at the door now, looking about her with a proud and self- 
complacent air. Mona Friel stands close at her elbow. 

It’s phroud ye’ll be. Bid Murphy ! ” 

Oi’m not a sayin’ that Oi won’t. Oi say now, as Oi’ve 
said before, ‘ Thim what has raysons fur bein’ proud hain’t no 
raysons fur not bein’.’ Ye moight be livin’ as ghrand yerself, 
some day, Mona Friel.” 

There’s no tellin’ ! Sthranger things have happened. The 
Shannons’ luck, now ! ” 

''That’s the thruth, Mona Friel. Who’d a thought it, last 
summer this toime! Thim a-livin’ in town! Foive rh-ooms, 
Kate Henessey tells me! Carpet on the bist one, a koind of 
mattin’ on Colleen’s, en’ the kitchen flure painted ! An’ they 
do say, though Oi won’t belave it till Oi say it mesilf, that it’s 
ivery mail they’re usin’ table-cloths.” 

" That’s no lie. Bid Murphy. Oi’ve been there an’ sain 

it mesilf. Mary Shannon bought six plates one day!” 


106 


DANNY 


‘‘Six? That must be a lie. An’ what would she nade 
with so minny ? Danny, they tell me, is a-wearin’ shirts all 

the toime an’ tan shoes.” 

“That’s a lie. Bid! It’s thrue enough about the shirts, 
but the shoes are black. But they’re livin’ ghrand ! Mary 
Shannon hain’t a-washin’ an’ is ghrowin’ as phroud as Danny. 
It was hersilf told me about the socks she’s wearin’ ivery day!” 

“ They’re wearin’ thim in town, they tell me. Mary 
Shannon ’ll not be loikin’ that Oi’m thinkin’ socks to be put off and 
on ivery day. It'll take toime, Mona Friel.” 

“ She may slape with thim on,” suggested Mona. 

“ No ; they take thim off, they tell me. Mary Shannon 

may not be loikin’ it, but she’ll kape up to the stoile if it kills 
her.” 

“Whin’s 111 Luck a-comin’ back?” 

“ This viry day, they tell me, Mona Friel. But if ye’re 

carin’ fur Mary Shannon’s good will, not to be spakin’ of that 

of Danny hisself, don’t on your loife be a-callin’ her that. It’s 
Colleen, and Dear Heart and Luck, they’re callin’ her ivery 
minnit of the day, whiniver they spake her name.” 

While they talked, from her little cottage in the town 
below, Mary Shannon started to the station, eager to welcome as 
her greatest blessing she who but a year before, had come to 
The Hill disguised as a burden. 


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